NEW YORK, NY–On Tuesday, the Major League Soccer Players Association released their updated salary guide as of September 2nd, 2022. The updated guide includes the salaries of Toronto FC’s Lorenzo Insigne and Federico Bernardeschi–both of whom are in the top four of player salaries. Insigne tops the list with a base guaranteed compensation of $14 million. This is followed by Chicago Fire FC’s Xherdan Shaqiri at $8.153 million and LA Galaxy’s Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez at just under $7.5M. Bernardeschi is fourth at a little over $6.25 million and LA Galaxy’s Douglas Costa rounds out the top five at $5.8 million.
The highest paid defender is Walker Zimmerman of Nashville SC at just under $2.5M. The highest paid goalkeeper is one that has not played for his club as of yet as his club starts play next season. That would be Roman Burki of St. Louis City SC at a little over $1.6M.
Toronto FC have the largest wage bill at over $32 million, followed by LA Galaxy at $27.3M. Rounding out the top five are Inter Miami ($24.2M), Atlanta United ($22.4M), and Chicago Fire FC ($19.4M). Just two of those top five reached the playoffs this season while the two teams with the lowest wage bills outside of St. Louis–Philadelphia Union and New York Red Bulls–did make the playoffs.
Outside of St. Louis, Sporting Kansas City had the highest median salary at just under $400,000. DC United had the lowest median at $120,000.
You can view our dashboard looking at the MLS Player Salaries out on Tableau Public courtesy of this reporter.
