Erling Haaland, Cristiano Ronaldo and Kylian Mbappe are among the highest-paid athletes in the world. You will not be surprised to read that. But where do they rank among their football peers?
Here are the top 10 highest earners in world football, only considering weekly wage before tax, not endorsements and bonuses. Lionel Messi does not feature…
Who is the highest-earning male footballer in the world?
10) Ivan Toney: £407,708 per week
By far the highest-paid English footballer, Toney is earning a fortune after swapping Brentford and the Premier League for Al Ahli and the Saudi Pro League.
9) Kylian Mbappe: £499,446 p/w
Mbappe earned a fortune at PSG and is unsurprisingly now Real Madrid’s highest earner. Running down your contract is becoming more common for elite footballers, who can bag a higher salary and ridiculous signing-on fee if they make sure a transfer fee is out of the equation.
8) Erling Haaland: £500,000 p/w
The Nordic robot now has the most lucrative contract in the Premier League. Manchester City have confirmed Haaland has signed a nine-year contract extension, meaning he will be at the club for another 115 months. Very clever, lads.
7) Robert Lewandowski: £532,689 p/w
And Barcelona are in a crippling financial position how?
6) Kalidou Koulibaly: £554,585 p/w
This ranking is not reflective of player ability. Kalidou Koulibaly is not the sixth-best player in world football. In fact, he does not come remotely close to that.
Saudi Arabia bailed out Chelsea by taking Koulibaly off their hands after one rubbish year at Stamford Bridge.
5) Sadio Mane £639,291 p/w
The Saudi Pro League took the world by storm in the 2023 summer transfer window and Koulibaly’s Senegal team-mate Mane was one of the biggest names to move to the Middle East that summer.
The Liverpool icon is raking it in, sitting fifth on this list.
4) Riyad Mahrez: £834,275 p/w
Leicester City title hero Riyad Mahrez had done it all in England and rode off into the Saudi sunset having completed it, mate.
=2) Karim Benzema: £1.59m p/w
Saudi Arabia picked up the Ballon d’Or holder and it does not get much bigger than that. To tempt the Real Madrid captain to the Middle East, they offered him the second-highest salary in football.
=2) Neymar: £1.59m p/w
Neymar might not be anything close to the player he was before his knee exploded, but he will always be a player loved by many and hated by plenty of others.
He is the third-best player of this generation behind Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo and is now making a fortune after being made surplus to requirements at PSG.
Neymar only played in two matches for Al Hilal in 2024 and is a free agent at the end of the season, meaning he was paid around £2m for every minute on the pitch.
1) Cristiano Ronaldo: £3.19m p/w
Ahead by a country mile and then some, Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo is the highest-earning footballer in the world.
The Real Madrid and Manchester United legend has been banging them in for Al Nassr, while entertaining those of us who refuse to watch the Saudi Pro League with his childish antics that have gone viral on social media.
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