Here Are The 2017 Salaries For MLS Players

The MLS players’ union, as it does every year, released the salaries for all of its current players today. Former Real Madrid legend and Orlando City SC midfielder Kaka once again topped the list for highest paid players with $7.17 million in guaranteed compensation. Just behind him is Toronto FC’s Italian star Sebastian Giovinco making $7.12 million. Giovinco’s teammate and USMNT captain Michael Bradley is in third at $6.5 million. Rounding out the top five are NYFC’s Andrea Pirlo with $5.9 million, and Spanish star David Villa at $5.6 million.

LA Galaxy’s Mexican star Giovani dos Santos is right behind Villa at $5.5 million, while newly minted Chicago Fire player Bastian Schweinsteiger comes in at seventh, earning $5.4 million. USMNT and Toronto striker Jozy Altidore makes $4.9 million, and Seattle Sounders forward and recently returned USMNT hero Clint Dempsey is ninth with $3.9 million. Closing out the top-10 is Portland Timbers midfielder Diego Valeri with $2.6 million.

In the league, 28 players have salaries of $1 million or more. MLS increased its minimum salary in the last collective bargaining agreement to $53,000. There are 50 players who make minimum, $53,004.00, in total compensation.

ESPNFC crunched some numbers as well:

The top six players each make more than the entire payrolls of four clubs — Houston, Montreal, D.C. and Minnesota — all of whom only pay their teams a little over $5m total. Those teams are also the only ones who don’t pay any single player $800,000 or more.

Only seven of the 22 teams — Toronto, NYCFC, Orlando, Chicago, LA, Portland and Seattle — have player payrolls over $9m.

You can check out the full list here: