Even if fans would like to see it differently, modern elite football is unashamedly focused on cold, hard and often dirty money.
With transfer fees rising exponentially, player wages skyrocketing and lucrative brand deals reaching new highs, exorbitant sums of money are now the beating black heart of the beautiful game.
It’s no surprise that players like Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe are among the highest earners in the world, but even the game’s most mediocre talents seem to be earning a small fortune on a weekly basis these days.
Here are the biggest football earners in the world.
*All salary data courtesy of Capology
Premier League
The Premier League being praised as the “best league in the world” would logically suggest that the Premier League also has the highest earners. That’s not necessarily true these days, although the English top flight has the highest average wage of any European league – only surpassed by the Saudi Pro League.
Given their extraordinary wealth, it is hardly surprising that Manchester City have the highest-paid player in the division in their squad. That is Kevin De Bruyne (£400,000 a week), whose incredible quality rightly sets him apart from the rest of the Premier League, although his ruthless team-mate is hot on his heels Erling Haaland (£375,000 per week).
Given Manchester United’s recent performances, this is rather unbelievable Casemiro (£350,000 per week) and Raphael Varane (£340,000 a week) are among the Premier League’s top five earners, while Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah is in third place with a weekly wage of £350,000.
The league
In the era when Ronaldo, Messi and Neymar all represented the league, La Liga often boasted the highest earners in world football, but today salaries are not quite as high. However, there are still some wealthy footballers in the top Spanish league.
The biggest earner in Spain is the Barcelona midfielder Frenkie de Jong, who earns £620,000 a week in Catalonia. Due to the club’s financial situation, paying the Netherlands international such amounts is a significant problem and is one of the reasons why he is often linked with a move away from Barca in every transfer window.
Barca can also boast of having the second highest earner Robert Lewandowski (£449,000 per week), another talented star who makes up a large part of his wage bill, but the rest of the top five is Real Madrid.
The veterans in Real’s squad were rewarded for their years of service Toni Kroos Earn £404,000 a week and Luka Modric brings home £362,000 a week. defender David Alaba He’s doing pretty well for himself too, earning £373,000 a week.
Bundesliga
Unsurprisingly, it is the England captain Harry Kane Who is leading the Bundesliga? The acquisition of the former Tottenham striker was seen as a major coup for German football, with the prolific centre-forward being rewarded with a salary of £414,000 every seven days.
Bayern Munich actually employs the eleven highest-earning players in the top German league, including club legends Manuel Neuer (£348,000 per week) and Thomas Müller (£348,000 per week) closest to Kane.
That’s a pretty significant gap to the highest-paid player who doesn’t wear the red and white of Bayern, namely the Borussia Dortmund striker Sebastien Haller (£182,000 per week) the leading money earner outside Munich.
A league
Serie A was once home to some of the world’s biggest stars and richest footballers, but those years are long gone. The Juventus striker speaks volumes Dusan Vlahovic earns more than any other player in Italy (£215,000), closely followed by the Napoli star Victor Osimhen (£212,000) – although he is likely to leave the league this summer.
Both Juventus and Inter dominate Serie A financially, with Osimhen the only player who does not play for the clubs that are among the top ten earners in the league. Wojciech Szczesny (£199,000 per week) and Alex Sandro (£184,000 per week) are, somewhat surprisingly, the third and fourth highest paid stars in the division.
Ligue 1
It’s not hard to guess who earns the most in Ligue 1, although it’s extremely unlikely they’ll be making a living in France next season. It is natural Kylian Mbappe We’re referring to the Paris Saint-Germain superstar taking home a staggering £1.19million every week. And that’s before you even consider your sponsorship deals and performance bonuses.
It’s a huge gap to the second highest paid player in Ligue 1 Ousmane Dembelewith the former Barcelona star earning a comparatively paltry £331,000 a week. Lucas Hernández isn’t too far behind, taking home around £16,000 less than Dembele each week.
You have to look as far as Ligue 1’s 14th top earner to find a player who doesn’t play for PSG and has a sharpshooter Wissam Ben Yedder of Monaco earns £129,000 every week. To put that into context, Mbappe earns nine times more than him.
Mbappe’s wages look pretty pitiful compared to some of the highest-paid professionals in modern football’s new financial powerhouse – the Saudi Pro League. As you may have guessed, Ronaldo Earns more than any other player in world football at Al Nassr with a weekly wage of £3.31 million. That’s just crazy.
A little further behind him are Al Hilals Neymar and Al Ittihads Karim Benzema (£1.66mp/w each), while even Riyadh Mahrez is paid more than any other footballer in Europe apart from Mbappe, earning £865,000 every seven days.
There are some big earners in Major League Soccer in the United States, but they are nowhere near the level of the Saudi Pro League. Eight-time Ballon d’Or winner Messi is the biggest money earner in North America, but his £185,000 salary pales in comparison to his old foe Ronaldo.
This is where things get even more complicated because footballers, just like most athletes, earn huge sums of money from their activities off and on the field. However, thanks Forbeswe can see some of the biggest off-field earners in world football.
Ronaldo and Messi lead the way in this category, with the Argentine coming out on top in this financial battle, earning £56 million a year on top of his basic salary. In contrast, its Portuguese rival brings home a hefty £48m a year.