MLS player salaries made public

The Major League Soccer Player's Union took a bold step today that puts it in line with the rest of the professional sports leagues in this country. In the 12-year history of MLS, player salaries were never made public — even though they were inevitably leaked to the media.

Today, they were posted on the MLS Players Union website, www.mlsplayers.org. The link can be found under the resources tab.

According to the website, "the decision was made to facilitate the accurate reporting of this information and to help educate the public regarding player compensation."

Here's a list of the 10 highest paid players in the league, in addition to all of Real Salt Lake's salaries.

Salaries are broken into two catagories. The base salary is just that, a base salary that counts toward the salary cap. The second includes all signing and guaranteed bonuses divided over the term of the contract. The second salary does don't include performance bonuses.

It's interesting to note that Jason Kreis had a base salary of $160,000 before he retired. That gives RSL a lot of salary cap space to go out and sign a replacement player.

    
            

        	
		
        
                
Top 10 Players
    
            

        	
		
        
                
Player                 2007 Base Salary   2007 Guaranteed Compensation
    
            

        	
		
        
                
David Beckahm, L.A.          $5,500,000   $6,500,000
    
            

        	
		
        
                
Cuauhtemoc Blanco, Chicago   $2,492,316   $2,666,778
    
            

        	
		
        
                
Juan Pablo Angel, New York   $1,500,000   $1,593,750
    
            

        	
		
        
                
Claudio Reyna, New York      $1,000,008   $1,250,008
    
            

        	
		
        
                
Landon Donovan, L.A.           $900,000     $900,000
    
            

        	
		
        
                
Eddie Johnson, Kansas City     $750,000     $875,000
    
            

        	
		
        
                
Carlos Ruiz, Dallas            $325,000     $435,000
    
            

        	
		
        
                
Taylor Twellman, New England   $325,008     $350,000
    
            

        	
		
        
                
Freddy Adu, RSL                $300,000     $550,000
    
            

        	
		
        
                
Carl Robinson, Toronto         $300,000     $315,000
    
            

        	
		
        
                
Real Salt Lake
    
            

        	
		
        
                
Player                 2007 Base Salary   2007 Guaranteed Compensation
    
            

        	
		
        
                
Freddy Adu                     $300,000     $550,000
    
            

        	
		
        
                
Mehdi Ballouchy                 $70,000      $88,000
    
            

        	
		
        
                
Nikolas Besagno                 $75,000     $111,500
    
            

        	
		
        
                
Kyle Brown                      $17,700      $17,700