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Today started like any other. It was a quite mild day, in fact. Birds were singing (maybe, depending on your area). Then at around 2:00 CST the MLS Players Union dropped the salaries for this season. There was wailing and gnashing of teeth. Many people are usually angered when they find out their favorite players make so little or their least favorite makes so much, but let’s start with the facts. Here’s the Fire’s salaries for this season:
Chicago Fire 2017 Salaries
| Last Name | First Name | 2017 Base Salary | 2017 Guaranteed Compensation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Last Name | First Name | 2017 Base Salary | 2017 Guaranteed Compensation |
| Schweinsteiger | Bastian | $5,400,000.00 | $5,400,000.00 |
| Nikolic | Nemanja | $1,700,000.04 | $1,906,333.37 |
| Accam | David | $750,000.00 | $820,937.50 |
| Juninho | $700,008.00 | $716,674.67 | |
| Kappelhof | Johan | $530,000.00 | $570,000.00 |
| De Leeuw | Michael | $500,000.00 | $564,212.50 |
| McCarty | Dax | $400,000.00 | $500,000.00 |
| Solignac | Luis | $274,999.92 | $328,312.42 |
| Rodrigo Bava | Jorge | $240,000.00 | $267,133.34 |
| Goossens | John | $230,000.00 | $233,333.33 |
| Arshakyan | David | $156,000.00 | $178,850.00 |
| Meira | Joao | $150,000.00 | $165,000.00 |
| Alvarez | Arturo | $135,000.00 | $142,500.00 |
| Harrington | Michael | $135,000.00 | $135,000.00 |
| Campbell | Jonathan | $101,750.00 | $109,875.00 |
| Polster | Matt | $99,900.00 | $114,900.00 |
| Vincent | Brandon | $96,250.00 | $118,125.00 |
| Fernandez | Collin | $85,000.00 | $87,000.00 |
| Mihailovic | Djordje | $80,000.04 | $80,000.04 |
| Lampson | Matt | $76,000.00 | $81,375.00 |
| Conner | Drew | $65,625.00 | $65,625.00 |
| Bronico | Brandt | $65,004.00 | $65,004.00 |
| Dekovic | Matej | $65,004.00 | $65,004.00 |
| Johnson | Daniel | $65,004.00 | $65,004.00 |
| Doody | Patrick | $65,000.00 | $65,000.00 |
| Calistri | Joey | $54,075.00 | $54,075.00 |
| Cleveland | Stefan | $53,004.00 | $53,004.00 |
So let’s start off slow. As expected, our three Designated Players are leading the pack, with Bastian Schweinsteiger earning $5.4M, Nemenja Nikolic earning $1.7M, and David Accam earning $750k. With the max salary on budget allowed by the CBA being about $480k, we can see that Juninho, Johan Kappelhof, and Michael De Leuuw’s salaries are being paid down by GAM/TAM. To just drop them at least to the point where they’re under the max, we’re using around $288k in GAM/TAM.
On the lower end, draft pick Stefan Cleveland is earning $53k and homegrown player Joey Calistri is earning $54k. For background: according to the current CBA, the Senior Minimum Salary should be $65k, while the Reserve Minimum is $53k. With the third lowest earner making $65k, we can see that those two players are in “roster spots” 25-28, making them reserve roster members.
The movers over this off-season are Jonathon Campbell, moving from $70k to $101k and Luis Solignac, moving from $85k to $275k. Campbell probably earned his raise by going from the 16th overall pick to the day-to-day starter in CB. Solignac’s raise apparently came from a clause in his contract that if his club took his option for 2017, his pay would rise to this amount.
On the general MLS end, Schweinsteiger is surprisingly only the 6th highest paid player in MLS, behind Pirlo ($5.6M), Giovinco ($5.6M), Villa ($5.6M), Bradley ($6M), and Kaka ($6.7M). The Fire are also the 4th highest spending club; but when you remove Schweinsteiger we drop to 11th, which looks about right.
Now that I’ve given the facts, time to let you guys discuss in the comments what you think about the salaries this year. Do you think some players are over-paid? Do you think other players are underpaid? Who is being paid exactly what they’re worth? Those are the questions!