Who is the highest-paid player in the world? Revealing the latest ranking of salaries
A popular French tabloid recently shared a latest ranking of salaries in the top leagues. Below – we estimate only the income of players, a separate article on coaches can be found below.
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Note that these are only approximate pre-tax figures. There are many factors influencing the salary of players: different bonuses, performance, appearances on the field and possible fines.
In France, everything is as usual: there are as many as 18 Paris Saint-Germain players in the top 20. Only a couple from Monaco made it through – Wissam Ben-Yedder (15th place, €650 thousand euros per month) and Cesc Fabregas (18th place, €600 thousand per month).
Neymar earns the most in the league – €4.083 million per month. The Brazilian renewed his contract with PSG in May, and his salary has risen even more – last year the same source wrote that he receives 3.06 million euros a month.
Lionel Messi, who moved to Paris, is in the second place (€3.375 million per month), young super star Kylian Mbappe is in the third place (€2.22 million).
Overall, not much has changed in Ligue 1 since last year: PSG’s dominance has continued, except that the moves of Messi, Achraf Hakimi, Georginio Wijnaldum and Gianluigi Donnarumma have added new faces to the list.
In England, the entire top five consists of Manchester clubs – mostly from United. Only Kevin De Bruyne (2nd place, 2.06 million euros per month) is included from the Blue side of the city.
Cristiano Ronaldo tops the list, receiving 2.6 million euros per month. It is interesting to compare with Leo Messi, who makes significantly more – almost €3.4 million.
Two other Man United summer newcomers are on the list – Jadon Sancho (€1.8m) and Raphael Varane (€1.6m). They beat last year’s top scorers, Raheem Sterling and Paul Pogba. It is funny that a year ago Gareth Bale was in the lead in the ranking – he was receiving €2.5m. But at that time Tottenham carried only a part of his salary.
In Germany everything is as consistent as in Ligue 1. Robert Lewandowski is deservedly in the leaders – €2.5 million per month. He is followed by his teammates. The entire top five are from Bayern.
The Spanish top five, however, have seen changes compared to last year. Ex-club talisman Messi is gone (he was receiving a cosmic 10.5 million euros per month), Antoine Griezmann, who returned to Atletico, has agreed to less.
But the ranking is still headed by Barcelona player Gerard Pique. In the summer of 2021 Barça reported that Pique saved the club by cutting his salary. But in the end he will get the money due (and even more).
Let’s quickly go through the rest: Gareth Bale (€2.2 million) returned to the top of La Liga, and Eden Hazard rounds out the top three. Next are Sergio Busquets, free agent David Alaba and the already mentioned Griezmann.
The Italian Serie A ranking is headed by Paulo Dybala, who will definitely leave Juventus in the summer: he has not agreed on a new contract just against the arrival of his neighbor in the top, Dušan Vlahović.
Juventus players occupy almost the entire top five. Apart from them, there is only Napoli’s Kalidou Koulibaly: he earns the same amount as Alex Sandro (€0.93 million).
There are changes compared to last year: Serie A have lost Romelu Lukaku and Christian Eriksen (€0.95m), who was at the bottom of the top-5. Instead, Leo Bonucci moved straight into the top 3, preceded by Juventus’ winter newcomer Vlahovic (€1.07m).
If we make a combined top for all the leagues, then:
- PSG’s sweet pair, Neymar and Leo Messi, lead the chart. Then Cristiano Ronaldo (€2.6 m), Gerard Pique (€2.3m) and Kylian Mbappe (€2.2m). Even here, Paris dominates.
- Practically all of the overall top consists of strikers, only Pique’s high wage is out of the picture. A curious detail: Gerard gets almost three times more than Sergio Ramos, who is not even in the top 10 of Ligue 1 – he has 0.8 million euros and 12th place in France.
- Leo Messi has fallen the most in finances compared to last year – back then he was far ahead of everyone else. Catalan 10,5 million has fallen to Parisian 3,375. The difference is about three times.