MLS
Will Messi be the highest paid player in MLS? Top player salary revealed...
Messi’s imminent arrival to MLS would not have been possible without a lucrative contract - here are the top players currently in MLS.
Dreaming of ‘maybe next year’ has become a reality that has turned into months, weeks, and now days and hours, as Lionel Messi’s arrival and presentation as a new Inter Miami player is creeping closer and closer. The Argentine will be presented as the new face of the team - and the sport in general - later this week (here’s how to watch).
Messi arrives after being at PSG for two years, a time he described as “difficult” despite putting up numbers that blitzed his European-based teammates and opponents. The deal to move him away from the elite of world football and to the states took a long time, with Inter Miami president, Jorge Mas, saying that the deal “took three years”. But what exactly is the deal that Messi has with Inter that is so attractive to him? And who are the other players in the league earning, quite literally, top dollar?
Who is currently the highest paid player in MLS?
The league’s top earner, as things stand, is Xherdan Shaqiri at Chicago Fire, who earns a yearly wage of $8.2 million per year. The Swiss international was signed from French side, Olympique Lyon in 2022 after having spells at Basel, Stoke, Liverpool and most notably, Bayern Munich, where he made 52 appearances for Die Roten.
Behind Shaqiri is Lorenzo Insigne, who plays for Toronto FC. The ex-Napoli menace is reportedly on a deal worth $7.7 million per year. Insigne arrived to MLS after making over 300 appearances for the current Serie A champions, where he won the Coppa Italia twice as well as a Supercoppa Italiana. For Toronto, since his arrival in 2022, the 32-year-old has played just 25 times, scoring 9 goals.
MLS top wages (pre-Messi)
| Player | Team | Wage (per year in USD) |
|---|---|---|
| Shaqiri | Chicago Fire | $8.2 million |
| Insigne | Toronto FC | $7.7 million |
| Chicharito | LA Galaxy | $7.5 million |
| Bernadeschi | Toronto FC | $6.4 million |
| Driussi | Austin FC | $6 million |
| Héctor Herrera | Houston Dynamo | $5.3 million |
| Douglas Costa | LA Galaxy | $4.6 million |
| Benteke | DC United | $4.5 million |
| Josef Martínez | Inter Miami | $4.4 million |
How much will Messi earn at Inter Miami?
Messi rejected a simply eye-watering sum of money to join the Saudi Arabian football revolution, with figures as high as $440 million being bandied about. His Inter Miami salary won’t be as high, yet he won’t be queueing for potatoes and bread on street corners.
The World Cup winner is set to be earning a wage in the region of $54 million per year, with a fair sum of money also arriving in his bank account from the MLS x Apple TV deal, as well as the MLS x Adidas agreement, another deal from which the player will take a cut. These reported deals will make the player, by far and away, the highest earner in the history of MLS. While it’s not Saudi coin, it is certainly a huge outlay for the Fort Lauderdale-based club, who will be looking to recover a lot of the money spent on Messi from tickets and merchandise sales, which have already gone through the roof, and he’s not even here yet!
MLS will no longer be known as it currently is, just in the same way European football is replete with asterisks: pre-Messi or without-Messi statistics take into account the simply unreachable numbers the left-footer has put out over the years. Someone needs to talk to Don Garber about renaming pre-2023 MLs as MLS* or MLS B.M. (before Messi).
