In an odd way, Chicago might be a new challenge. Garth would have a chance to run a team with the outlet of Lugano. One more way to improve the team. He wouldn’t run Lugano, but would be able to shuffle players around and use it as a carrot to sign new players. It might work. I still think Heitz stays on for Lugano and maybe a figurehead position over all soccer operations (basically no actual day in how Garth runs things), but I could see this as a new and interesting challenge for Garth.
We need to understand how the MLS salary cap works. We could pay our DP $50 million a year and it wouldn't affect our capabilities to pay at other positions.
Someone smarter than me must know, but I thought I read once that 600k of a DP salary counts toward the budget. I’ve also read that the TAM and DP designations distort the roster balance making MLS teams look glitzy with high end stats, but functionally inept across the rest of the team. A solution would be to set a spending floor and a budget cap and just let teams allocate their roster budget as they please.
Yeah, I don't really care that Shaqiri is the highest paid player in the league other than the embarrassment element of it. It's Joe's money and he can spent it how he'd like. DPs are evaluted on a good/bad scale whether they make 1M or 100M. It's the TAM guys that you have to worry about overpaying.
That's what they've done partially, the average salary of an MLS player is now $438k. I don't think a team in Serie A has a higher paid player than Shaqiri.
I saw this morning that Juventes is prepared to offer Paul Pogba a salary of $7.8 million, less than Shaqiri's $8.135 mil in guaranteed compensation, and they can sign him on a free with no transfer fee. Juventus have offered 29-year-old France midfielder Paul Pogba, who will be available on a free transfer when his Manchester United contract runs out this summer, a three-year deal worth and annual £6.3m. (Goal) https://www.bbc.com/sport/61474404 What I found amazing when looking at the 2022 MLS Salary site is that there are 92 players making more than $1,000,000 guaranteed. That is astounding. Four for the Fire: Shaqiri Gimenez Czichos Przybylko
Yeah when did this happen? MLS players make real pro sports money now. Doesn’t seem that long ago when guys routinely made 50-60k. Happy for the players and soccer in general that more significant sums flow through, but wish the Fire were actually good as a result.
Just a quick note guys, gals and non-binary pals, Georg Heitz STILL has a job with your Chicago Fire. It has been just over a month since this article was published: https://www.hottimeinoldtown.com/20...re-should-the-fire-renew-georg-heitz-contract I have seen nothing to change anything from the article, with one win, one draw and three losses since May 11.
Seeing how patient Mansueto has been with Heitz and Wicky, I wouldn’t expect a change before the end of his contract in December.
I think our purchase of Lugano doubled down on Heitz. I don't think he will leave, if anything he will be put in another role.
I imagine he’s not budging until after the Club World Cup. He wouldn’t want to miss being part of that.