Sometimes items from Soccer America can be a total miss but check out today's MLS Confidential on the Galaxy. For anyone out there that couldn't get how the LA Galaxy was able to squeeze in Edson Buddle to their salary cap, check this article out.

By bringing back Edson Buddle into the fold, even if he costs slightly more than the $178,488 salary he earned in 2010 before leaving for Germany, the Galaxy probably hasn't crunched its salary cap to any great extent, because of player departures as well as amassing allocation money.

When was the last time FIBA had anything to do with NBA matters? Practically never.
The NBA does everything it wants with no input from FIBA publicly until now, apparently. FIBA, the International Basketball Federation has determined that Kenyon Martin is a free agent, owing nothing to any team from China.

When the Chicago Fire announced Quaker Oats as their new jersey sponsor earlier this week (I swear that one is growing on me by the day), the news left four clubs without a sponsor.

The Colorado Rapids, the Columbus Crew, FC Dallas and Sporting Kansas City all have holes in their jerseys well metaphorically speaking.

Time to start the annual end of the year process of lists. Over the next couple of weeks we'll review end of the year of posts and some of the top business stories of the year. We thought it makes sense to start by looking back a year to the end of 2010 at some of the top business stories from that year.

After signing for Saigon FC in the VLeague defender Huynh Quang Thanh is thought to be earning a tasty $476,000 a year, easily the highest in the country. Lee Hendrie is thought to have been earning $550,000 for his stint in Indonesia while salaries there rarely top $100,000.

By Tony Attwood

Manchester City added another honour to their trophy cabinet last night by securing the most expensive shot in the history of football. Their squad last night cost (including this season's salaries) something in the region of £200m, and managed one shot on target an all time record.

(Photo: Nicolae Stoian)

Editor's note: Last year, we posted a series of "Raves" about some of our favorite Philadelphia players. They need not be the team's best players, but they're guys and gals we like. Over the next two weeks, we continue the series again with some of the PSP contributors favorite players of 2011.

This is a 2011 list of top 20 highest paid soccer players in the world.

RankPLAYERSCLUBSMONTHLYANNUAL 1Cristiano Ronaldo Real Madrid€ 1,000,000€ 12 million 2 Lionel MessiFC Barcelona€ 875,000€ 10.5 million 3 Fernando TorresChelsea€ 833,000€ 10 million 4 Yaya Toure Manchester City € 833,000€ 10 million 5 Wayne Rooney Manchester United € 791,000€ 9,500,000 6 Ricardo Kaka Real Madrid € 750,000 € 9,000,000 7 Zlatan Ibrahimovic AC Milan€ 750,000€ 9,000,000 8 Emmanuel Adebayor Real Madrid € 708,000€ 8,500,000 9 Carlos TevezManchester City€ 666,000€ 8,000,000 10 Samuel Eto'oInternazionale€ 666,000€ 8,000,000 11 Frank Ribery Bayern Munich € 666,000€ 8,000,000 12 John TerryChelsea€ 625,000€ 7,500,000 13 Frank Lampard Chelsea€ 625,0007500.

Barcelona president Sandro Rosell was in a pretty combative mood Tuesday at a conference in Doha as he took aim at both FIFA and UEFA.

Rosell was asked whether clubs would ask FIFA and UEFA to pay players during the World Cup or European Championship and he replied:

"This is what we are discussing with both institutions.

As Brazil's economic power catches up with its time-honored soccer talent, celebrated players like Neymar are shunning big European teams and enjoying the comforts of home for similarly fat salaries

Some fascinating comments by Barcelona president Sandro Rosell today in which he wants to see the Spanish league cut from 20 clubs to 16, limits placed on wealthy foreign owners and a more equitable sharing of TV revenue.

Speaking at the International Football Arena conference, Rosell said:

"My opinion is that our league has too many clubs.

Yesterday in Plymouth, some people with lots of money demanded more money, some people with much less money were told they were getting no more money, until the people with lots of money got more money. This was morally indefensible. Doubtless, there will be people on hand to claim "it isn't as simple as that.

Earlier this week, Thad and I got together and recorded a new edition of From the Byline to the Back Post. This week Thad and I discussed player news, including Scott Lorenz's return and new players salaries. We also discussed the games against Houston and Real Salt Lake as well as this weekend's women's game between the US and Canada, with a sprinkle of Comets news at the end.

Photo: Earl Gardner

Whenever the Major League Soccer Players Union releases players' salary numbers, it's usually the rare opportunity to step back and see who's worth their salary and who's not. So that's exactly what we're going to do here, with a look at each Union player's salary and evaluation of whether they're worth it or not.

The Major League Soccer Players' Union has released the latest batch of player salary numbers. The numbers are offered both by team and player and show the wide range of salaries in the league. This latest release is most interesting because it reveals the wages of some of the league's most recent signings.

The MLS Players' Union released updated player salaries today. Five players have been added to the list for Kansas City while 3 players are gone from the list. One other player has seen their salary increase.
Added to KC's salary list are Daneil Cyrus, Jeferson, Joseph Peterson, Soony Saad, and Seth Sinovic.

Here are the final numbers from the Players Union for base salaries and guaranteed compensation. I don't know about you, but there sure seems to be some wasted money on this list. For example, the Dynamo are paying Carlo Costly nearly a half million in reported pay (there could be more allocation money involved) and all we've gotten is a red card.

Although he doesn't have much hype, Matt Moore is one of the best pitching prospects of the last decade. The Tampa Bay Rays have been patient with the 23-year-old until now. With the Boston Red Sox and the AL Wild Card within reach, the Rays have called up Matt Moore.

Moore's minor league stats are sick.

There's an interesting article over on the Business Insider which explains a bit about salaries and it's correlation on attendance figures in MLS. Really it's quite worth the read if you're interested in that sort of thing.

That said, the most interesting part I got out of it was that the Timbers are currently tied with Chivas USA and the San Jose Earthquakes for lowest salary amongst all its players.

According to a report from Business Insider on MLS spending, the Philadephia Union are tenth in salary for the 2011 season.

The numbers that Business Insider used are probably from the beginning of the season, when former striker Carlos Ruiz was still on the Union's payroll. A graph within the article lists the Union at $3.

(Graph via Business Insider)

Business Insider had this nifty graphic up on a post today about spending in MLS and how it has gone up. The article also talks about attendance being on the rise as well but for me this was all about each club's spending.

The league is slowly getting there and will only continue to get better as long as owners pony up the cash for players here.

Spain's top two divisions will finally get under way on Saturday after further strike action was averted. Last weekend's first round of matches was postponed with no deal agreed over a fund to protect players' wages if their clubs are declared insolvent.

But talks between the Liga de Futbol Profesional (LFP) and Association of Spanish Footballers (AFE) finally reached a resolution today.

La Liga strike has ended!!

The first week of La Liga had already been lost and it was not looking like good for week two as numerous meeting through out the week had ended in a deadlock. However, on Thursday afternoon talks between the Association of Spanish Footballers (AFE) and Liga de Futbol Profesional (LFP) finally resulted in an agreement that would end the two week strike.

Spanish league players remain on strike after league officials and the players' union failed to reach an agreement to end the current work stoppage.

The two sides emerged from Monday's meeting without an agreement, which threatens to delay the second round of games this weekend.

While Levante president Francisco Javier Catala said "something positive came from today's meeting," his players' union counterpart Luis Gil did not sound so optimistic.

While Spanish footballers are prepared to go on strike in La Liga over wage delays and payment issues, I came across this infographic showing top footballer salaries... Are footballers overpaid? Click here to expand Sports Management Colleges has more infographics ... Continue reading →

It's a bid to encourage clubs to take a chance on younger prospects.

Here's more from Associated Press Sports Writer Tim Booth (and will Chivas USA, who took a pass on the likes of Freddy Adu, grab striker Eddie Johnson?):

Major League Soccer is adjusting its designated player rules in the hopes of bringing in more young international talent, an area in which the league has struggled to gain a foothold.

On one hand, it's great some of the best club teams in the world come to the U.S. to play MLS teams as warm-ups for their own leagues. These teams are in their early-season practices getting ready for their respective seasons and U.S. Soccer fans are treated to seeing some of the world's best Soccer players.

In what we hope will be a reoccuring section of the site, Ned Hardwood has submitted the first guest column on the site. He writes an article breaking down his thoughts on MLS's use of Designated Players and the DP rule. While "MLS Reserves" does not always agree or disagree with the thoughts of our guest columnists, we do encourage healthy debate and conversations on this topic.

Many of us had hopes that we were going to do some significant house cleaning this summer, with a number of players leaving, as well as many coming in. I think it's safe to say at this point, we're not headed for a very big turnover. The fact that we're likely to hang on to a lot of the so-called "dead weight" on the team has been driven home to me in a number of ways this week.

We're just a few short weeks from the transfer window opening up and we're already knee deep in designated player (DP) rumors. It seems like the Seattle Sounders have become the go-to source for rumors and players looking to negotiate a higher salary.
While the rumors swirl around the Sounders other teams are already utilizing their open DP spots to bring in help to their struggling sides.

Marcel Brands, former Feyenoord midfielder and PSV TD

PSV Eindhoven has firm financial issues to solve, if it wants to remain a solid Eredivisie club. An expansion of the stadium is out of the question and PSV will no longer pay 1 mio euros salaries to players. But, PSV does want [read more]

On July 15th the summer transfer window for MLS officially opens. Like many of you I've been watching rumors of possible and not-so-possible designated players (DPs) like Djibril Cisse and Diego Forlán. It's also made me think about DPs around the league and which strategies for using DPs have been successful (and which haven't).

Robert Peston from the BBC has concluded the following from the latest Deloitte annual review:

- If you combine spending per unit of output with success in winning trophies, there is no doubt that Alex Ferguson is incomparably the most successful manager in the UK. United's wage bill per Premier League point is £1.

Short of the Premier League changing its mind and awarding Arsenal the league title for plucky against-all-likelihood endeavour, the one thing that would have kicked the summer off in a marvellous and positive fashion would have been some early incomings.

Wishful thinking, it seems, seeing that a) in signing terms it's early doors (whatever early doors are) and b) the futures of two very important players are obfuscated if, indeed, obfuscated is the word I'm looking for.

I recently added an interactive graph of MLS salary info to the site but I haven't done much with the data since then. With the summer transfer window opening and fans debating whether or not it is worth it for their MLS club to import expensive Designated Players, I decided to take a look at how the top earners in MLS compare to their European counterparts.

While the situation around Jose Enrique and Joey Barton intensifies, two players left Newcastle United today without much notice. Veteran defender Sol Campbell and stalwart strike Shefki Kuqi left the club with Alan Pardew looking toward the future and focusing on some of the younger players available to him.

By Andrew Villegas Every year, we working stiffs await with eager anticipation the day when MLS salaries are released. We crunch numbers and either feel good or bad about how much money professional soccer players in America make. Also we feel better or worse about how much money we make ourselves. With that in mind, below [.

Every year about this time the MLS players union releases the salaries for all the players in the league. There is something tawdry about how excited I get, looking over our players' personal incomes. I feel like an honorary member of the yenta-net, gossiping about who makes the most money.

A new From the Byline to the Back Post is up for your listening pleasure ahead of tomorrow's game against the Galaxy. This week Thad and I discussed the news, the New York and LA games, former Wizards, and the salaries for Sporting KC. Available on iTunes and Posterous. Also thanks again to the Vandon Arms for the music.

I just got beaten in posting this by Gooch over at the Star who basically posted some of the same information. But I spent enough time working on this I'm going to post anyway.

Over the weekend, the MLS Players' Union put out the salaries for players through May 1st. When the list was released there were certainly a few questions about the list.