{"id":639610,"date":"2026-05-13T01:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T01:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/639610\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T01:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T01:02:09","slug":"inter-miamis-lionel-messi-remains-highest-paid-mls-player-with-salary-of-18-5m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/639610\/","title":{"rendered":"Inter Miami’s Lionel Messi remains highest-paid MLS player with salary of \u00a318.5m"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lionel Messi remains the highest-paid player in Major League Soccer with an annual base salary of $25m (\u00a318.5m) – more than double that of the North American league’s next-highest earner.<\/p>\n

Figures released, external<\/a> by the MLS Players Association reflect the contract extension that Messi, who turns 39 next month, signed with Inter Miami<\/a> in October.<\/p>\n

The Argentina forward’s base salary has doubled, while overall the deal is worth $28.3m (\u00a320.9m) in guaranteed compensation.<\/p>\n

LAFC’s Son Heung-min<\/a> is the second-highest earner on a base of $10.4m (\u00a37.7m), with $11.2m (\u00a38.3m) guaranteed. <\/p>\n

The former Tottenham forward, 33, earns slightly more than Inter Miami’s Rodrigo de Paul and San Diego FC’s Hirving Lozano.<\/p>\n

The salaries do not include income from endorsement deals, or Messi’s option to acquire a stake in Inter Miami – co-owned by David Beckham.<\/p>\n

Messi joined the Florida franchise in 2023 and has scored 59 goals in 64 regular-season MLS games, helping Miami win the MLS Cup in 2025.<\/p>\n

He led the league with 29 goals last season and has been Most Valuable Player in each of the two full MLS seasons he has played so far – 2004 and 2005.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi remains the highest-paid player in Major League Soccer with an annual base salary of $25m (\u00a318.5m)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-639610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}