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The MLS Players Union today released player salary information for the second time this year. As has become tradition with the union, they release player salaries twice a year, once early in the season, and once late in the season after the roster freeze. While the numbers always give a general idea of where teams stand in terms of the salary gap and TAM/GAM money, they never tell the full story and you always need to take the numbers with a grain of salt.
For Sporting Kansas City, there were six additions made to their roster since the union released their first numbers back in April. The club has added homegrown player Gianluca Busio (fellow homegrown player Jaylen Lindsey was announced, but his contract does not start until 2018), Cristian Lobato, and four players from USL side, Swope Park Rangers, Kharlton Belmar, Amer Didic, James Musa, and Kevin Oliveira.
Of the six new additions, two of them, Busio and Didic are making the league minimum, $53,004 in base salary. Busio’s guaranteed sees him just to just over $55,000. The club’s other three additions from Swope Park, Belmar, Musa, and Oliveira are all making $65,004 in base salary, with Oliveira $68,337.33 in guaranteed compensation. Lobato is the only player of the six signed making more than the minimum in the league. Lobato’s base salary and guaranteed compensation are both at $180,000, making him the ninth highest paid player on the club.
The combined base salary for the six new players is $481,020, that’s over $66,000 less than what the New England Revolution are paying Krisztian Nemeth for a full season, his base salary according to the new players union numbers is $547,200. KC has also got more production from the six players, with three of them having made appearances for the team (and Belmar appeared in the US Open Cup on loan from SPR before he signed) while Nemeth has been limited to just 34 league minutes.
There was also one other salary change on this release, forward, Cameron Iwasa jumped from a $53,004 base to a $65,004 base salary.