He’s not the highest-paid player currently plying his trade Stateside, but let’s just say he doesn’t do too bad for himself either.
The list of salaries paid to MLS players for 2014 was published by the MLS Players’ Union yesterday and has been the case every year since moving to the States, Keane’s name was prominent amongst those most richly rewarded for their efforts in a league that is growing at quite a steady pace.
Keane’s annual salary of $4.5 million was enough to place him fourth on the list of the highest paid players in the league in terms of base salary, with the MLS also publishing a ‘guaranteed’ figure which allows for bonuses for signing, marketing and agent’s fees. Taking that figure into account, Keane’s LA Galaxy team-mate Landon Donovan earns slightly more than Keane with $4.58 million per year, but Keane’s fairly lucrative salary is enough to keep him in the top five.
In terms of guaranteed salaries, Clint Dempsey of the Seattle Sounders is top of the list with a cool $6.695-million followed by Toronto FC duo Michael Bradley ($6.5 million) and Jermaine Defoe ($6.18 million). No surprise Jermaine didn’t seem too downhearted about leaving Spurs then.
Hard as it might have been to believe ten years or so ago when all three were plying their trade in the Premier League, Thierry Henry of the New York Red Bulls earns less than both Defoe and Keane on $4.35 million per annum, followed by another former Premier League great, Tim Cahill, who pockets $3.62 million a year.
The gulf in earnings between the designated and non-designated players in the league is reflected in the fact that the highest-earning non-designated player, José Gonçalves of the New England Revolution, earns just $450,000 per year, although we’d hardly turn our noses up at that annual sum for a career as a professional footballer all the same.
Nice work if you can get it alright.
