Big money can’t buy wins for Impact
Montreal struggling under new coach Garde, and now sit in ninth place in Eastern Conference
MONTREAL — It’s interesting to watch the Impact players drive into the parking lot at their Centre Nutrilait practice facility.
Some players arrive alone, while others car pool. The cars range from a Honda Civic to a Kia Sportage to a Hyundai Tucson to a Nissan Murano to a Chevrolet Camaro and there’s also a Porsche.
Not surprisingly, the Porsche Cayenne SUV belongs to Ignacio Piatti.
Last Thursday, the MLS Players Association released its biannual list of player salaries along with the payroll for all 23 teams in the league as of May 1. As a designated player, Piatti is by far the Impact’s highest-paid player with total compensation of $4,713,333, almost six times as much as Alejandro Silva, the team’s second-highest paid player at $800,040.
The MLS Designated Player Rule allows clubs to sign up to three players whose total compensation and acquisition costs exceed the maximum budget charge, which this year was set at $504,375 for a player who is 24 or older. The Impact have two designated players this season: Piatti and fellow midfielder Saphir Taider, who is earning $800,000.
The Impact rank seventh in MLS team payroll at $11.888 million, more than doubling it from last year when they were 21st at $5.215 million. The biggest reason for that rise is Piatti, whose salary jumped more than 10 times from the $450,000 he earned last year.
Toronto FC — the defending MLS Cup champions — have the highest payroll at $26.167 million and have three designated players among the seven highest-paid players in MLS: Sebastian Giovinco (No. 1, $7.115 million), Michael Bradley (No. 2, $6.5 million) and Jozy Altidore (No. 7, $5 million).
Piatti, who is No. 8 on the salary list, has been earning his money this season with a team-leading five goals and six assists. But the Impact has been struggling under new head coach Remi Garde, sitting in ninth place in the Eastern Conference
with a 3-8-0 record and with the worst goal differential in the league at minus-12.
Impact owner/president Joey Saputo is not happy and addressed the players in the locker-room after last Saturday’s 2-0 home loss to the Philadelphia Union.
“He just told us he wasn’t happy with our performances,” midfielder Samuel Piette said before practice Tuesday afternoon at Centre Nutrilait. “It was embarrassing for him, for the fans and for the club, and I think he’s 100-per-cent right. He’s the president, so he has the right to come down and tell us what he’s not happy with. So that was fine to me.”
Toronto FC have been even worse than the Impact this season with a 2-6-1 record in part because they were also busy competing in the CONCACAF Champions League, advancing to the final before losing in penalty kicks to Chivas last month in Mexico. But TFC has a huge advantage in MLS with a team payroll that is more than four times higher than the Houston Dynamo, who are at the bottom of the MLS list at $5.673 million.
When asked Tuesday about the MLS salary list, Garde said: “To be honest, I didn’t look at that very deeply because it’s something that I cannot change. But then I knew when I came it’s like that in every
league … you’ve got different power at the financial level and then you have to cope with that. I’m not the kind of person that will moan about what I have not. I know that I have probably tools in my hands with which I could do a little bit better. It’s up to me now to do that.”
The Impact are back in action on Monday at Saputo Stadium against the Los Angeles Galaxy (3 p.m., TSN, TVA Sports, TSN Radio 690) and the heat is already on Garde only one-third into his first MLS season. Garde has a three-year contract, but Saputo doesn’t have a lot of patience with coaches and Garde is the Impact’s fifth one since joining MLS for the 2012 season. Garde
said Saputo’s post-game visit to the locker-room could be a good thing for his team.
Piette is the only Impact player to play every minute of every game this season and his salary is listed at $129,234. Of the 31 Impact players on the list, 13 earn less than $100,000 and seven earn less than $60,000.
“I don’t think the salaries of the players matters to us,” Piette said. “We don’t judge players in the locker-room that make more or less. We’re a collective team and we just have to work together, it doesn’t matter who’s playing.”
Or, I imagine, what they’re driving.