Miami has repeatedly shown financial leverage to bring big names to South Beach. Messi is the highest paid player in the league, making $20.4 million per year. Busquets, his former Blaugrana teammate is third, pulling in $8.8 million. Under league rules, Neymar might be able to sign a similar low-paying deal to Suarez – who penned a $200,000 per year deal – but it would be a drastic decrease from the over $80 million annual salary he is set to make for Al-Hilal.
MLS Commissioner Don Garber has previously voiced support for MLS’s salary cap rules, claiming that they keep the league in a better position than most European divisions: “In terms of governance, we’d probably change things: maybe not have strict salary caps, maybe not have a centralized entity like the league office making a lot of learned decisions based on committees and the like,” Garber said. “But I think we have a model that has driven our success, and I think if that model was adapted around the world, football would be in much, much better shape.”
One way in which Miami could make the deal work is if Neymar is willing to accept a similar pay structure to Suarez and Alba – he could be paid using Miami’s remaining general allocation money – earning him a maximum of roughly $1.7 million per year.
Or, it can get complicated. The Herons could make Neymar their third designated player – someone whose salary is exempt from certain salary limits – and offer him more money. However, that would mean shifting their financial structure, and would force them to sell off one of their earmarked U-22 initiative players to comply with league rules – effectively getting rid of a valuable rotation piece to account for a new star man.
Martino quashed rumors that a Neymar deal would be financially possible, saying is a news conference, “With [Messi] and the boys already here, anything that can happen. What I can’t imagine is if the league doesn’t make the salary issue more flexible, how it would be carried out. After writing it or saying it in the media it’s all good, nothing happens, it doesn’t have any consequences, but what would the implementation be like? And the reality is that if there is something that the MLS has, it is that the rules are strict and can’t be broken, unless the MLS decides to change.”
He also laughed off the suggestion that Neymar’s new property could indicate transfer activity: “I arrived in Barcelona at the same time as [Neymar]. It was a good year and for me being able to coach such high-ranking players will always be a very special memory. The truth is that one cannot talk so easily and freely about whether a player could come or not. It seems to me that when we talk about this, another type of support is needed. We cannot talk or mention a player because he bought a house here or has a girlfriend from Fort Lauderdale.”
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AFP
