A Newly Informed Guesstimate at Sepp Blatter's FIFA Salary

In a 2011 blog post, Grant Wahl of Sports Illustrated appeared to have uncovered some new information on FIFA executive compensation. That information came to my attention today in a new NBC News story on FIFA compensation (and this appears to be the original source this week).

Below, I use this information to generate an informed guesstimate of Sepp Blatter's FIFA salary (shown above illustrating the size of his pay package).

Wahl wrote in 2011:

Mohamed bin Hammam, a FIFA executive committee member from Qatar who is challenging Blatter for the FIFA presidency, told SI.com that he made 200,000 euros ($281,720) from his FIFA duties in 2010. Bin Hammam added that he believed other executive committee members (aside from Blatter, who spends far more time on the job) earned the same amount in 2010.

"We don't get any salaries," Bin Hammam said. "We are only getting bonuses [and FIFA expense reimbursements]." One FIFA source told SI.com that personal bonuses for the executive committee are larger in years when FIFA's profits are higher, as was the case in 2010.

Bin Hammam, a wealthy businessman, insisted that he did not collect his $281,720 for 2010, saying: "If you go to FIFA and ask them, 'How much do you owe Bin Hammam?' they will tell you how much money I have with FIFA. ... It is there in my name and it belongs to me. I don't collect it. I don't collect most of it, let me say. But this is not only me. I believe most of my colleagues are the same.

"I don't think FIFA has to hide anything. It is not in FIFA's interests, and not in the interests of the people who are receiving this," said Bin Hammam, who promised that FIFA would reveal "100 percent" of its pay packages for the president and executive committee if he is elected. "Why should we make this so secret and make the public always have a question about it?"

Bin Hammam provided considerably more detail than FIFA was willing to give.

In my recent article on FIFA I provide some of the big picture numbers on compensation from the FIFA budget documents that are public record (here in PDF):

In 2010 FIFA reported compensation for its ‘‘key personnel’’ (Executive Committee, Finance Committee and FIFA management) of $34.5 million, representing an increase of almost 11.5 million – almost 50% – over 2009 (FIFA, 2011b). Using employee numbers from the FIFA website this works out to an average compensation of about $1 million per person (FIFA, 2011d). (The Executive Committee has 24 members and FIFA describes its management to include 10 officials.)

The new numbers aloow us to do a bit of simple math.

In 2010, if 24 Executive Committee member, minus Sepp Blatter, each made $281,720 then that totals $6,479,560, leaving about $28 million to be allocated among 10 management officials. The average is $2.8 million. If we assume that Sepp Blatter makes twice the average then that would place his salary at ~$6 million per year (or at least, in 2010).

To one significant digit, I'll offer that as a first best guess at Sepp Blatter's salary. Any takers on the over/under?