The summer transfer window has seen AC Milan be more active than almost any other club in Europe barring a few, and that has caused some changes to the salary chart.
Since Elliott Management and now RedBird Capital have been in charge, Milan have made their guidelines clear: no crazy spending, targeted investments in young players who are useful to the cause and without huge salaries.
There are several examples – a few of which are in Serie A – that struggle to justify having a large wage bill because of the lack of success it brings on the field and the problems it causes off the pitch in the accounts.
Milan are different. As MilanLive reports, Rafael Leao is the highest paid player in the squad at €5m net per season plus bonuses which could reach €7m, after the renewal he recently signed.
There are five players who receive a €4m net salary a year in the squad, three of which are new signings in Christian Pulisic, Samuel Chukwueze and Ruben Loftus-Cheek, then there is Divock Origi who could yet leave.
In seventh place is Ismael Bennacer, another player who renewed a few months ago and obtained a pay rise to €3.8m net. Olivier Giroud and Fikayo Tomori get €3.5m and the top 10 ends with Mike Maignan who gets €2.8m.
- Rafael Leao: €5m net/yr
- Samuel Chukwueze: €4m
- Christian Pulisic: €4m
- Divock Origi: €4m
- Theo Hernandez: €4m
- Ruben Loftus-Cheek: €4m
- Ismael Bennacer: €3.8m
- Fikayo Tomori: €3.5m
- Olivier Giroud: €3.5m
- Mike Maignan: €2.8m
- Mattia Caldara: €2.2m
- Davide Calabria: €2m
- Alessandro Florenzi: €2m
- Yunus Musah: €2m
- Noah Okafor: €2m
- Pierre Kalulu: €2m
- Tijjani Reijnders: €1.8m
- Rade Krunic: €1.5m
- Simon Kjaer: €1.5m
When talking about the amount of investment this summer from the owners, it’s worth highlighting just how much additional salary they’re taking on.
Yes, Ibra, Bakayoko and Tonali got decent money which is now freed up, but there 18m added to the payroll and that’s after tax.
Large investment in a front line with not all of those players guaranteed to start. Yes, people will criticise Origi’s contract (though personally I think the club should give him another chance if he doesn’t want to leave) but between him, Giroud, Chukwueze, Pulisic and Leao’s new deal, that’s a pretty heavy investment.
We can’t always offer a low salary and expect the players to stay. If Tonali can get 7m euros net per year in England why he would stay with us? And the same for other good players. that’s why commercial investments are crucial. I think most would agree that the new management is doing well on this part. Also important are the new stadium and the new overseas broadcast contract.
Time to show Theo and Maignan that you appreciate and value them, extend their contracts and raise their salaries to 5 mil.
Calabria and Krunic ( if you are not going to sell him) deserve a slight bump in their salaries.
Maignan is getting to the point where his value will start going down if we don’t renew, but that’s entirely dependent on his ability to stay healthy through the year.
Thiaw just signed and has four years left on his deal, shouldn’t be any hurry to renew that from the club. Make him earn that over another year or two first.
Caldara 2.2M. This guy should be the first to leave or at least get a heavy pay cut.
Hi contract is up at the end of this season – at most we could get 5-10% of it back if he’s loaned out, so might as well be 5th choice CB if he’s willing to be IMO. Fair play to him, he’s been happy to be loaned out to play first team games for the last couple of seasons
Pulisic and RLC had a high salary already when at Chelsea, with Pulisic even having lowered his salary. But Chukwueze? I am guessing his agent was asking a huge figure. And it would be a shame if he isn’t going to be a starter
Everything have its own reason. Milan is icon club, but still with revenue 300 350 million. In terms of salary cant give paychecks like Chelsea. Pulisic is experienced player with huge salary in Chelsea and Ruben is 27 years old already. Chukwueze is player who can become the star so that makes difference.
Chukwueze is attracted with bigger pay rise and Pulisic with Loftus plays at Milan for some sports achievment.