Fire Have Third-Highest Payroll in MLS

The Chicago Fire have the third-highest roster spend in Major League Soccer, according to this spring’s MLS Players Association (MLSPA) salary release. The full list was briefly published on the MLSPA website earlier today, but will be re-released Thursday.

According to the numbers posted, only Inter Miami, bolstered by DPs Lionel Messi and Sergio Busquets, and Toronto FC, boosted by former Italian international Lorenzo Insigne, spend more on player salaries than the Fire. Messi's salary, at $20.4 million, would alone make him the fifth most expensive roster in the league if he were a team. The release of information on player compensation pulls back the curtain and allows fans and league observers some insight into the opaque MLS salary budget.

The data released by the players' association includes base compensation and guaranteed bonuses, but does not include transfer or loan fees, which also count towards the league’s salary cap and are a significant amount of roster outlay for many teams. The actual cap hit of an individual player is also impacted through the use of Allocation Money and various other league accounting mechanisms, such as the special U-22 initiative slots.

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With the addition of Sergio Busquets to Inter Miami, Xherdan Shaqiri, once the league’s highest-paid player, has slipped to fourth place behind the Spanish midfielder, Toronto FC’s Lorenzo Insigne, and Lionel Messi. However, Shaqiri’s big-money $8 million contract did significantly contribute to the Fire’s prominence on this list, making up roughly one-third of the team’s $23.1 million spend.

Forward Hugo Cuypers, who joined the Fire in a reported $12 million deal from Belgian side Gent in the offseason, is set to earn just over $3.5 million this season, making him the second-highest-paid player on the Fire’s roster and 17th highest-paid player in the league overall, just behind Minnesota United’s Teemu Pukki and ahead of Nashville’s Walker Zimmerman.

Salaries of other new arrivals include the $472,000 promised to Allan Arigoni this season, and $454,167 to Tobias Salquist, who joined the Fire from Denmark. Chase Gasper is slated to earn $525,000 this season as part of a previous deal negotiated by the Houston Dynamo, who are picking up the bulk of the tab for the left back.

Homegrown star Brian Gutiérrez earned a big pay bump with his move to a U-22 Initiative contract in the offseason, which allows teams to pay homegrown players more than the maximum salary budget charge. Previously on roughly $240,000, he now earns nearly $900,000 – a lower DP-level salary, and likely more than a player at his career stage would make in Europe.

Other players who earned significant pay bumps over their previous contracts are Carlos Terán, whose new deal nearly doubles his previous compensation to $619,000 per season; Andrew Gutman, a former Fire academy product, who saw his pay jump over $200,000 to $600,000 per year upon joining the Fire; and Fabian Herbers, the longest-tenured player on the Fire’s roster, who saw his pay rise by over $100,000 to a shade more than $420,000 per season.

Not every player on the roster received a raise this season: Federico Navarro, who came to the Fire as a highly-touted prospect with a seven-figure transfer fee, saw his pay go to $557,000 per season, a decrease of $249,000 from last year as the once-promising midfielder has struggled to get starting minutes.

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The Fire’s $25 million total spending is significantly short of Miami’s $40 million and Toronto’s $31 million, but considerably higher than fellow Eastern Conference clubs Nashville SC and FC Cincinnati, who round out the top five in the league at $21 million and $18 million respectively. MLS Cup champion Columbus Crew spent just $15 million, the ninth-lowest in the league, while the cheapest roster in the league is that of St. Louis CITY, who finished first in the Western Conference last season and have a wage bill of only $12 million.

Although player wages and results are typically correlated in soccer, the Fire currently sit 14th in the 15 team Eastern Conference and 28th in the 29 team league table despite the generous spending under owner Joe Mansueto. Despite the outlay, the Fire’s wage bill is widely expected to increase this summer as the team shops for a Designated Player.