People suggested last year that Pirlo's salary looked very low given his status. The number is much bigger this year so perhaps last year was a typo.
The players union does not typically report half year salaries. They post the full year salaries even for players who come in during the summer.
It remains mildly astounding how much more money some guys make than others and on how few teams they're concentrated. Gerrard, Kaka, Lampard, Pirlo, etc. are clearly being paid for "lifetime achievement" and the consequent theoretical ability to bring in eyeballs, but I do wonder how much that actually translates. Also seems like msot players (maybe all?) making north of 2 million/year fall into the category of: (1) Returned US Team Vet (2) Aging Star of a European Champion's League Winner
Toronto, NYCFC, LA, and Colorado are the teams with 3 players making over a million. FCD, DC, Houston, KC, NYRB, and Philly are the teams without a player making 1+ million. The number of Pirlo and Villa jerseys that I saw at the Union game against NYCFC suggests there is some merit to that. There were also quite a few Gerrard jerseys at the game against LA.
Most likely. Potentially Keane as well (he signed an extention last year but it was not noted for how long/which years are options). Will be interesting to see the next wave of DPs at NYC and LA and look for a trend away from expired euro luxury players towards players still producing at levels close to their primes or even on the uptick. Would imagine columbus using the stacks of TAM from New England to bring in a DP forwards this summer as well (and the Falcao rumors wont go away)
Here's a list of all players over league max : CHICAGO David Accam - $770,938 Kennedy Igboananike - $901,667 Gilberto - $1,145,000 Johan Kappelhoff - $520,000 COLORADO Kevin Doyle - $1,120,000 Shkelzen Gashi - $1,668,750 Tim Howard - $2,575,000 Jermaine Jones - $650,000 COLUMBUS Federico Higuain - $1,175,000 Gaston Sauro - $601,313 DALLAS Mauro Diaz - $544,400 Carlos Gruezo - $686,500 DC UNITED Alvaro Saborio - $535,500 HOUSTON Giles Barnes - $756,250 DaMarcus Beasley - $813,333 Erick Torres - $650,000 LOS ANGELES Nigel De Jong - $500,000 Giovani Dos Santos - $4,250,000 Steven Gerrard - $6,132,500 Robbie Keane - $3,500,000 Jelle Van Damme - $468,750 Gyasi Zardes - $472,500 MONTREAL Laurent Ciman - $661,667 Didier Drogba - $2,166,667 NEW ENGLAND Jose Goncalves - $479,375 Kei Kamara - $1,000,000 Xavier Kouassi - $890,542 Lee Nguyen - $500,000 NEW YORK CITY Mix Diskerud - $761,250 Frank Lampard - $6,000,000 Andrea Pirlo - $5,915,690 David Villa - $5,610,000 ORLANDO Kaka - $7,167,500 Antonio Nocerino - $650,000 Brek Shea - $595,000 PHILADELPHIA Tranquillo Barnetta - $687,500 Maurice Edu - $793,750 Ilsinho - $478,333 PORTLAND Fanendo Adi - $712,500 Lucas Melano - $760,000 Darlington Nagbe - $500,000 Liam Ridgewell - $1,250,000 Diego Valeri - $550,000 REAL SALT LAKE Kyle Beckerman - $750,000 Juan Manuel Martinez - $1,458,667 Javier Morales - $590,000 RED BULL NEW YORK Aurelien Collin - $525,000 Sacha Kljestan - $687,500 Dax McCarty - $500,000 Gonzalo Veron - $500,000 Bradley Wright Phillips - $710,000 SAN JOSE Simon Dawkins - $800,000 Innocent Emeghara - $1,300,000 Chris Wondolowski - $700,000 SEATTLE Osvaldo Alonso - $941,667 Clint Dempsey - $4,605,942 Roman Torres - $491,813 Nelson Valdez - $1,455,000 SPORTING KANSAS CITY Matt Besler - $733,250 Dom Dwyer - $618,750 Roger Espinoza - $800,000 Graham Zusi - $732,102 TORONTO Jozy Altidore - $4,825,000 Michael Bradley - $6,500,000 Sebastian Giovinco - $6,132,500 VANCOUVER Matias Laba - $720,500 Pedro Morales - $1,258,900 Octavio Rivero - $890,850 Looking at this list you can already predict where the summer transfer activity will be. Pretty likely that Orlando and Montreal will add a major DP. Seattle will try and find a way to unload Valdez (sell, trade) and/or Torres, opening them up for a big signing. Columbus will make one big-ish signing to replace Kamara.
Don't think Seattle has to sell/release anyone. They were going into the season with that group plus Oba as a DP. With him leaving they still likely have that amount of money open for a DP signing.
Two things about China. First of all they have strict roster rules. That means that even if every Chinese league club uses their 4 slots on major players, it still only adds up to 64 players. Those strict roster rules also means that there is insane pressure to live up to that expectation of stardom which means that several players will be squeezed out of the league to make way for the next big signing. MLS can just pick them off the rebound.
An interesting note on China, part of the culture of their leadership is to leave behind a legacy or a monument to their presidency. The current leader chose the Chinese Super League because he is supposedly a huge fan of the game. By giving huge government incentives to the owners of these teams to spend (trading benefits for their businesses), the league has started shelling out that cash. His term in office ends in 2017 I believe and the next president could move in an entirely different direction. Just some food for thought, idk how much of that is assumed prerequisite, but I think its interesting regardless.
33 games, 11 goals, 9 assists, 2879 minutes .... how is that being paid for "lifetime achievement" ???
The All Bust team is ----------------------------------Howard (predicted bust) -------------Okugo-------------R. Torres-----------------Halsti Emeghara-----------Lampard------------De Jong--------------Veron ------------N. Valdez------------Altidore-------------Cubo
It is a shame the league continues to not release the TAM and GAM for each team. It would make speculating and playing GM for each team much more interesting and have less guess work involved.
Tis a bit unfair to Kouassi imo. He is not even in the league yet (yes I know he will be hurt once he joins). He could join this list at the end of the season.
Correct and thanks for the catch . I also would not have epxected to see CO with three guys making 1 million plus. Of the 13 guys making over 2 million a year the Galaxy, NYFC, and Toronto have 9 of them. I should relatively to the value delivered. At 11 times the cost of the next highest paid player on the team and the highest paid player in the league, yes relative to that he's not being paid for his on the field contributions at that amount. He has performed significantly better than Lampard, Pirlo, or Gerrard, but salary vs. output doesn't really justify making more than the rest of the your team combined. And I do think you need to take into account that these older guys do seem to have a lot of injury issues (shocking I know) that seem to limit their playing time significantly which does effect the value for money proposition.
I know this is hard to measure but I feel like Kaka's value off the field is significantly higher than Gerrard in LA or Lampard in NY.