LA Galaxy Players 2022/2023 Weekly Wages, Salaries Revealed

The Los Angeles Galaxy also referred to as the LA Galaxy, is one of the teams competing to win the United States Major League Soccer (MLS) title. The American professional soccer club is based in the Los Angeles suburb of Carson, California.

The club which plays in the American League as a member of the Western Conference was established on June 15, 1994. LA Galaxy, owned by Anschutz Entertainment Group, started playing in the MLS in 1996 as one of the league’s ten charter members.

The club derived the name “Galaxy” from Los Angeles which is home to the “stars” of Hollywood. LA Galaxy’s current colors are white, navy blue and gold. The team’s primary uniform is white and the secondary uniform is blue. The colors were adopted to coincide with David Beckham’s arrival with the team in 2007 as part of an overall re-branding exercise spearheaded by former GM Alexi Lalas.

Prior to 2007, the Galaxy played in various color combinations, usually comprising gold, teal green and white with black accents, and often highlighting an iconic ‘sash’ design from the left shoulder and across the chest. Their original jersey, used in the inaugural 1996 MLS season, reflected the colors of the city of Los Angeles and featured black-and-teal halves, black sleeves with gold and red accents, black shorts and black socks.

The Galaxy have had two logos to date. The original brand was gold, teal and black, and featured the Galaxy wordmark superimposed over a golden swirl, with a stylized black outline. The logo was changed in 2007, again to coincide with David Beckham’s arrival, and now features a blue shield with a gold border, the LA Galaxy team name, and a quasar at the top of the crest.

In their early years, the club played its home games at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. They moved to  Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California in 2003 and they have since remained there. The stadium has 27,000 capacity. LA Galaxy is coached by Argentine football manager Guillermo Barros Schelotto.

The team holds a rivalry with the San Jose Earthquakes in the California Clásico and used to play the SuperClasico against city rivals Chivas USA before that team folded in 2014. A new rival emerged in 2018 in the form of Los Angeles FC in the El Tráfico derby.

LA Galaxy is one of MLS’s most successful teams, with a record five MLS Cups and having appeared an additional four times in the final, and won the Western Conference regular season title eight times, four Supporters’ Shields, two U.S. Open Cups, and one CONCACAF Champions’ Cup title. In 2017, the club added the dubious MLS Wooden Spoon to its trophy case for finishing the bottom of the MLS league table.

In 2007, the club made international headlines with the signing of English player David Beckham from Real Madrid, the most high-profile transaction with MLS to that point. The club has fielded other high-profile international players including Zlatan Ibrahimović, Robbie Keane, Luis Hernández, Giovani dos Santos, Jonathan dos Santos.

Others are Jorge Campos, Steven Gerrard, Ashley Cole, and American Landon Donovan who is the all-time leading scorer for the club. Most recently in 2020, they signed Javier “Chicharito” Hernández, the all-time leading scorer for Mexico’s National Team. In 2019, Forbes estimated the club is the second most valuable in the league, worth about $480 million.

In March 2007, Herbalife signed a five-year deal with the Galaxy, worth between $4–5 million a year, to be the club’s primary shirt sponsor. Four months later, the club signed David Beckham from Real Madrid. His debut was made at Home Depot Center before a record crowd of nearly 35,000, including many celebrities, coming on in the 78th minute in a 1–0 loss to Chelsea in a match during the World Series of Football tournament.

The match brought unprecedented TV coverage from ESPN, who used 19 cameras to cover it, including one trained only on Beckham, even when he was on the bench. In that season’s SuperLiga, LA reached the final but lost to Mexican side Pachuca on penalties after extra time. LA nearly made the end-of-season play-offs but were eliminated following a 1–0 loss to the Chicago Fire.

Javier Hernandez is the highest-paid player in LA Galaxy after joining the MLS club for a fee of around £7m after agreeing to a three-year deal worth £103,000 ($6,000,000) a week.