We’ve known ever since Clint Dempsey re-signed with the Seattle Sounders late last year that he had taken a significant pay cut. Now we have a pretty good idea of just how much of one, after the MLS Players Union made available their first salary release of 2018 on Thursday.
Dempsey is now listed as receiving $1.65 million in guaranteed compensation in 2018. That’s a 57 percent reduction on what he was making last year and nearly $3 million less than he was listed as being paid in 2016. That leaves Nicolas Lodeiro as the team’s highest-paid player (at about $2.