TFC salaries from MLSPU website

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

http://www.mlsplayers.org/files/june_14_2010_salary_information__by_club.pdf

TFC   deGuzman   Julian   M   $   1,670,796.00   $   1,717,546.00       

TFC   DeRosario   Dwayne   M   $   375,000.00   $   443,750.00       

TFC   Barrett   Chad   F   $   205,000.00   $   212,500.00       

TFC   Garcia   Nick   D   $   190,000.00   $   198,750.00       

TFC   Peterson   Jacob   F   $   125,000.00   $   143,000.00       

TFC   Hscanovics   Raivis   D   $   114,000.00   $   120,250.00       

TFC   White   O'Brian   F   $   105,000.00   $   182,000.00       

TFC   Usanov   Maxim   D   $   96,000.00   $   102,250.00       

TFC   Saric   Martin   M   $   90,000.00   $   90,000.00       

TFC   LaBrocca   Nick   M   $   77,000.00   $   79,500.00       

TFC   Conway   Jon   GK   $   60,000.00   $   69,833.33       

TFC   Cronin   Sam   M   $   57,500.00   $   105,500.00       

TFC   Cann   Adrian   D   $   56,592.00   $   65,342.00       

TFC   Attakora-Gyan   Nana   D   $   40,000.00   $   40,000.00       

TFC   Gala   Gabe   D-M   $   40,000.00   $   40,000.00       

TFC   Gargan   Daniel   M   $   40,000.00   $   40,000.00       

TFC   Gomez   Emmanuel   D   $   40,000.00   $   45,600.00       

TFC   Harden   Ty   D   $   40,000.00   $   40,000.00       

TFC   Kocic   Milos   GK   $   40,000.00   $   40,000.00       

TFC   Sanyang   Amadou   D   $   40,000.00   $   46,555.55       

TFC   Total   2,126,092.00   (assuming JDG and DeRo 335K and 

                                        Robinson and Gerba not factored in)



TFC   Ibrahim   Fuad   F   $   100,000.00   $   133,000.00       

TFC   Frei   Stefan   GK   $   80,000.00   $   135,000.00       

TFC   Herold   Zachary   D   $   60,000.00   $   109,166.67

TFC   Joseph   Nane   M   $   40,000.00   $   40,000.00

[ag futbol]

This might be the first year where i can look at the TFC salary list without cringing (with one or two exceptions).

Shows you Preki is getting the most out of what is being spent in salary considering Robinson and Gerba are effectively dragging down the total amount that can be spent.

[Grizzly]

This might be the first year where i can look at the TFC salary list without cringing (with one or two exceptions).

Shows you Preki is getting the most out of what is being spent in salary considering Robinson and Gerba are effectively dragging down the total amount that can be spent.

Not so sure about that. How do you pay over $100 000 for a Latvian league player? Makes me wonder if there is not something fishy in the contract, ie. kickbacks.

96 000 also seems way too much for a guy, Usanov, who has bounced between teams in Latvia, and the Russian 2nd tier without really becoming a starter anywhere.

And 90 000 for a guy from the Slovenian league as well.

These seem like typical Mo overpaying to me except all 3 seem almost certainly to be Preki signings.

[Richard]

$1.7 million to Julian De Guzman, based on his productivity to date he is w-a-y overpaid.

[nolando]

Yep, by my best estimation JDG should be making about the same as Barrett, to be honest, perhaps 300,000 tops.

And if anybody deserves seven figures, it is obviously DDR. I could see why this would be an ongoing insult for the guy.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

On the bright side signing JDG removed the stigma that appeared to exist amongst CMNT players where playing in North America is concerned. That may have helped draw Cann and Ornoch (assuming he signs) back to play for TFC as well. Hscanovics getting more money than Usanov, Cann, Harden, Attakora and Gargan is the major eye-opener for me. He has got to be a regular starter at that sort of money and can't be viewed as a depth signing. Hopefully there is a TFC held option for 2011 and he can be released at the end of the season if he doesn't get his act together between now and October.

[Unnamed Trialist]

What is outrageous about JDG is that his offers in Spain were not worth any more than half a million euros, from Osasuna, from Espanyol, even with the negotiations not going anywhere. He was on track for no more than half of what he was offered at TFC.

This suggests that he is overpaid, not in terms of his football value, but in terms of his market value. He was out of contract, and did not have any clear and attractive offers. If they'd offered him a third less he would have signed for TFC I think, meaning the offer and eventually signed for salary was excessively high, it was inflated.

Either JDG's agent did a good job or TFC did not on that negotiation.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

Not sure if you were on the various TFC related subforums and messageboards last summer but during all the JDG to TFC speculation people who know him posted for weeks on end that there was no way he would move back to MLS because La Liga was where he very much wanted to be. That being the case it shouldn't be a surprise that TFC had to offer significantly more than Espanol and Osasuna did to get him to play in MLS. Having said that there is no question that so far he isn't providing enough to justify a DP salary that is not too far off being as large as the combined earnings of his team mates but as long as he's close to being worth 335k against the cap that isn't necessarily a huge issue from a supporter's perspective (different story if you are somebody like Dan Gargan on 40k a season).

[Unnamed Trialist]

Not sure if you were on the various TFC related subforums and messageboards last summer but during all the JDG to TFC speculation people who know him posted for weeks on end that there was no way he would move back to MLS because La Liga was where he very much wanted to be. That being the case it shouldn't be a surprise that TFC had to offer significantly more than Espanol and Osasuna did to get him to play in MLS. Having said that there is no question that so far he isn't providing enough to justify a DP salary that is not too far off being as large as the combined earnings of his team mates but as long as he's close to being worth 335k against the cap that isn't necessarily a huge issue from a supporter's perspective (different story if you are somebody like Dan Gargan on 40k a season).

The point is that he was not being bidded on. Osasuna looked at him, so did Espanyol, but both ruled him out, at least in June of the then preseason 2009. He could have worked other offers through his agent, like in England or Germany but as you say he wanted to stay in La Liga. Not a single rumour played out on this side of the Atlantic, not one lasted more than a week. He really did not have attractive offers happening, though later in the European pre-season that could have changed, by late July for example.

The TFC bid to get him made sense. I don't know if they were in a big hurry, but they could have negotiated down if they had wanted, I am sure about that. It seems to me they preferred to just spend to ensure they got him, and that involved overbidding to cut negotiations short and just sign him.

For me the best thing to do is not evaluate him in terms of his salary, which is his luck, he is a 800-900,000 CDN player a year maximum, just as DeRo would be making double if he'd had a top flight stint in Europe and had come back.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

Can we ever know for sure that other La Liga clubs hadn't made some kind of offer we well? These things don't always get made public at least in the UK anyway. Not so sure about Spain.

[Vic]

I'm not worried about guys making six figures, I'm worried about guys like Attakora making $40,000. That's pre-tax. The guy plays almost every minute of every game for two years now, and the cleaner who comes in at the end of the game to sweep up the garbage from BMO probably makes more than him. Shocking.

[Unnamed Trialist]

Can we ever know for sure that other La Liga clubs hadn't made some kind of offer we well? These things don't always get made public at least in the UK anyway. Not so sure about Spain.

There are four national sports dailies in Spain, 7 days a week. I can assure you they publish everything, they are notorious for hitting the rumours and picking up the half-truths.

I just looked back on things and I am mistaken. The Osasuna offer was from mid June, a year ago today in fact. TFC appeared as a possible bidder in early July, though the first reports were that he rejected them. Espanyol appeared in the first week of August, and that hit two snags. One was that they had the Serbian Lola as a non-EU player and had to loan him out. The other was that Dani Jarque died tragically in Italy on the same day the Julian rumours came out, August 8, when it looked like they were negotiating with him. But the club went into mourning, everything was put on hold. Apart from the need to quickly sign a centre back to cover his loss, meaning they apparently opted to not go for a defensive mid (they actually struggled there all season with only Hurtado and academy players).

So Julian's good Liga option disappeared in mid-August, with two weeks left in the transfer window. No other option appeared, the only rumours were on fan sites (Getafe for example, Valladolid). And Espanyol would have been around half a million euros a year, just ballparking based on similar players and their salary structure.

The point is the same: he did not have good Liga offers. TFC could probably have offered less and gotten an affirmative, that is just my opinion. Julian agreed to TFC in early September.

[BearcatSA]

I'm not worried about guys making six figures, I'm worried about guys like Attakora making $40,000. That's pre-tax. The guy plays almost every minute of every game for two years now, and the cleaner who comes in at the end of the game to sweep up the garbage from BMO probably makes more than him. Shocking.

I don't know if his contract is up but he is definitely due for a bigger pay packet. The team's also getting great bang for buck from the likes of Gargan and Sanyang. For this year's acquisitions, the international signings have provided the least value and at this stage at least LaBrocca has proven to be worth much more than Peterson, but that might change as we move towards the MLS "dog days of summer."

[tmcmurph]

The big shock for me was the CBs. Both Nana and Adrian are grossly underpaid compared to the job they have done. It speaks volumes about how little building from the back out means to Mo. If they wait until their contracts are up they will lose both. I hope they both get double that next year it is the least they deserve. Hopefully there are some performance bonus clauses in their contracts.

As to DDR he has been getting commercials which may be MLSE's way of padding his salary to a level he deserves.

JDG. On one hand I'm glad to see him getting a large paycheck and on the other it probably could have been spent better but so could a lot of TFC's (both Mo and Preki) signings.

Again your back 3 which are THE reason for your success are grossly underpaid. Frei, Cann & Attakora all should be doubled in salary and I hope it happens once you ditch the obviously overpaid Garcia and reclaim his 190k.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

Frei is on a Generation Adidas deal that will probably last for five seasons (three plus two option years tends to be the norm for that) and right now he costs TFC zero against the cap because he hasn't graduated to the senior roster yet. After his current contract is up he'll probably cash in big time with a top European club if he hasn't already been transferred. Attakora will also get to earn much better money in future based on what he does during his current contract. The real eyeopener is Cann given he's a more experienced CMNT player returning from Europe. He must have had no attractive options over in Europe in financial terms if he was willing to accept 60k, which makes his performances so far all the more surprising in a pleasant way.

[Gian-Luca]

I don't know if his contract is up but he is definitely due for a bigger pay packet.

I've heard that Nana's contract is up at the end of the year, and rumours that the club has tried to re-sign but he's rejected the initial offer with an eye to employment in the UK.

[Free kick]

I've heard that Nana's contract is up at the end of the year, and rumours that the club has tried to re-sign but he's rejected the initial offer with an eye to employment in the UK.

Heard similar stories. I hope that they can sign him. Another year with TFC wouldn't hurt him and TFC could get a transfer fee for him should he sign with TFC and choose to go to England after next year. The coaches at Plymouth are familar with him.

[Richard]

I doubt JDG has had much impact on TFC's merchandising sales and he certainly doesn't come across as a marquee player in the media. He is overpaid and underperforms in every aspect of what is expected of a marquee player. I am sure he is a nice guy and he is obviously a good enough player though not outstanding, but he simply does not produce for TFC on or off the field the way Freddy Ljunberg does for Seattle say.

[Grizzly]

It seems like TFC is determined to pay top dollar for European players and those who have played in Europe. JDG is way overpaid for what he is currently bringing to the team but at least I can understand the logic of his signing somewhat, ie. paying a lot of money for a Canadian who has played at the highest level and can be marketed. The problem is JDG is not currently a DP style player and while he may have the potential to become one, ideally for DP money you want a guy of DP quality right now.

Nevertheless I don't see how you can justify paying a 23 year old career Latvian league player over $100 000. He has played as mediocre as one could expect of someone from this league. What type of salary would he be making in Latvia that TFC has to pay him this type of money? Signing in MLS is a career opportunity for him to play in a better league and prove he can play better because if he hasn't transferred from Latvia at 23 he can expect to stay in this league for good, ie. he should be willing to transfer to MLS for lower wages. I thought Robinson was overpaid as well but at least I can understand he was probably making a similar salary to what he could have commanded in the CCC. But paying big money to guys from the Latvia and Slovenian league and a Russian 2nd division substitute? For all the talk of a Canadian premium they are paying 3rd rate European roster fillers twice as much as Canadian starters. If I were Nana I would hold out for a lot of money after 2 years of playing for peanuts if I were to sign over my future development and control of transfers to TFC/MLS.

[redhat]

It seems like TFC is determined to pay top dollar for European players and those who have played in Europe. JDG is way overpaid for what he is currently bringing to the team but at least I can understand the logic of his signing somewhat, ie. paying a lot of money for a Canadian who has played at the highest level and can be marketed. The problem is JDG is not currently a DP style player and while he may have the potential to become one, ideally for DP money you want a guy of DP quality right now.

Nevertheless I don't see how you can justify paying a 23 year old career Latvian league player over $100 000. He has played as mediocre as one could expect of someone from this league. What type of salary would he be making in Latvia that TFC has to pay him this type of money? Signing in MLS is a career opportunity for him to play in a better league and prove he can play better because if he hasn't transferred from Latvia at 23 he can expect to stay in this league for good, ie. he should be willing to transfer to MLS for lower wages. I thought Robinson was overpaid as well but at least I can understand he was probably making a similar salary to what he could have commanded in the CCC. But paying big money to guys from the Latvia and Slovenian league and a Russian 2nd division substitute? For all the talk of a Canadian premium they are paying 3rd rate European roster fillers twice as much as Canadian starters. If I were Nana I would hold out for a lot of money after 2 years of playing for peanuts if I were to sign over my future development and control of transfers to TFC/MLS.

I would agree very much. While I also think that JDG is way underperforming, he is the DP and is being paid like a DP. The other Euro players are being paid too much for my liking in light of Attakora and Cann being paid a fraction of their teammates, especially Nick Garcia's.

[youllneverwalkalone]

OT, but I still don't understand scouting in MLS. It seems like players show up in bunches: Gambia, Latvia, Colombia, etc. across the league. This suggests that there is some type of single-entity scouting going on. I find this weird. TFC's gate revenue must be fairly comparable to the mid-table Ligue 1 sides, for example. I know there's probably a massive French TV deal, but these French clubs also probably pay at least 10x the annual wages to their players. With all that savings on salary, why can't they employ 10-15 scouts to scour the hotbeds of cheap football talent? As Grizzly says, scouting Latvia is a joke when you could be in Brazil, Argentina, Turkey, Portugal, etc. Scouting in MLS seems agent based or at least something fishy.

[Unnamed Trialist]

OT, but I still don't understand scouting in MLS. It seems like players show up in bunches: Gambia, Latvia, Colombia, etc. across the league. This suggests that there is some type of single-entity scouting going on. I find this weird. TFC's gate revenue must be fairly comparable to the mid-table Ligue 1 sides, for example. I know there's probably a massive French TV deal, but these French clubs also probably pay at least 10x the annual wages to their players. With all that savings on salary, why can't they employ 10-15 scouts to scour the hotbeds of cheap football talent? As Grizzly says, scouting Latvia is a joke when you could be in Brazil, Argentina, Turkey, Portugal, etc. Scouting in MLS seems agent based or at least something fishy.

Makes sense. For example: how many players like Pedro Pacheco are currently in 1st and 2nd division in Portugal? I would bet there are a half dozen more that could play for Canada and some would likely have Toronto connections. May be wrong, but if we missed Pacheco who else don't we know? Never mind all those who don't have to be Canadian.

[ag futbol]

Not so sure about that. How do you pay over $100 000 for a Latvian league player? Makes me wonder if there is not something fishy in the contract, ie. kickbacks.

96 000 also seems way too much for a guy, Usanov, who has bounced between teams in Latvia, and the Russian 2nd tier without really becoming a starter anywhere.

And 90 000 for a guy from the Slovenian league as well.

These seem like typical Mo overpaying to me except all 3 seem almost certainly to be Preki signings.

Relative to the league I think that's not too bad of a hit. 100k is still on the low end of the range. So we'd be overpaying them by 50k or so ? Not a huge deal compared to overpaying guys like Welsh, Robinson, etc.. by at least 100k each.

Whoever made the comment about central league scouting is right BTW. Big brother does a lot more scouting than the individual clubs want to admit. Take for example the Gambian's TFC claim to have "found". They were offered to LA first, they weren't interested. Columbian influx earlier this year would be another example.

[Grizzly]

^^ If you look at it purely from a dollars point of view you are right that some of these guys are overpaid by only 50 but on the other hand as a percentage of what they should make they it is like 50% which is more than say Robinson was overpaid. My main point though is that you should never be overpaying for guys who are subs and depth players. It is somewhat understandable to overpay for players who have played at a high level like Robinson, JDG and Welsh and who even if they are not as good as expected are still key contributers to the club (at least Robinson and JDG were, not so much Welsh). Sometimes players don't perform as expected or fit into the style of the team as well as expected. However, I can't understand at all how one can overpay for guys with little pedigree who have spent their careers toiling in the lower/lesser leagues of Europe. How can you overpay guys who have little market value? And especially when you are paying some key players peanuts.

As much as everyone was wanting Mo to start looking at players outside the leagues of Britain where some bargains might be found, I don't think anyone was suggesting these leagues should be those of Slovenia and Latvia. As someone who has seen a number of Russian 1st division matches (2nd tier) live, there are quite a few players at this level who could be useful signings for a MLS team. However, they should have signed a Russian 2nd division player who was a steady starter and key player for a decent side not a guy who has bounced around as a sub for various teams between stints in where, you guessed it, Latvia. With proper scouting I am certain you could get a much better Russian 2nd division player than Usanov for the same salary, ie. a guy who could be a steady MLS starter.

[Admin]

In way, it is amusing when we are talking about overpaying players by thousands of dollars.