Miami and Argentina player earns more more than twice as much as the second-highest-paid player in Major League Soccer.<\/p>\n
Published On 13 May 202613 May 2026<\/p>\n
Lionel Messi remains the highest-paid player in Major League Soccer with an annual base salary of $25m, more than twice as much as the next-highest-paid player, Son Heung-min, the MLS Players Association says.<\/p>\n
According to the figures released on Tuesday, Messi\u2019s base salary has doubled, while overall the deal will see him make $28.3m in guaranteed compensation.<\/p>\n
The union\u2019s latest list of player salaries reflected the contract extension Messi signed with Inter Miami in October, which will keep him with the Florida outfit through the 2028 campaign.<\/p>\n
South Korea star Son, the former Tottenham captain who signed with Los Angeles FC last August for a reported MLS record $26m transfer fee, has a base salary of $10.36m, with total guaranteed compensation of $11.2m.<\/p>\n
The salaries do not include income from endorsement deals, nor does Messi\u2019s compensation reflect his option to acquire a stake in the Florida franchise, co-owned by David Beckham, which he joined in 2023.<\/p>\n
The 38-year-old Messi, who is expected to lead Argentina\u2019s World Cup title defence starting next month, has 59 goals in 64 MLS regular-season games with Miami. He led the league with 29 goals last season and was named Most Valuable Player for the second straight season.<\/p>\n
Messi\u2019s Inter Miami and Argentina teammate Rodrigo De Paul is third on the list with $9.7m in guaranteed compensation.<\/p>\n
Mexico\u2019s Hirving \u201cChucky\u201d Lozano is fourth on the list with $9.3m, although he has not featured for San Diego since November.<\/p>\n
Atlanta\u2019s Miguel Almiron rounds out the top five with guaranteed compensation of $7.9m.<\/p>\n
Miami\u2019s $54.6m payroll is more than $20m higher than LAFC, which is second at $32.7m, and nearly five times as much as Philadelphia\u2019s league-low $11.7m. Miami\u2019s payroll is up from $46.8m at the start of last season.<\/p>\n
Total league compensation was listed at $631m, with the average guaranteed compensation $688,816, an 8.9 percent rise from figures released last October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Miami and Argentina player earns more more than twice as much as the second-highest-paid player in Major League…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[115594,740,57,123,125,124,115,197,4571,4572],"class_list":["post-269214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-business-and-economy","tag-economy","tag-football","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-news","tag-sport","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}