24. Didier Drogba (Galatasaray) – £25m
Didier Drogba’s last act for Chelsea was to score the penalty that won the club their first ever Champions League trophy, before then embarking on a lucrative move to China in the summer.
The Ivory Coast captain and record goalscorer joined the Londoners for £24 million in 2004 and was instantly catapulted into the realms of the game’s major earners. In his first season he helped Chelsea to their first league title in 50 years.
He is one of the highest earners in world football, particularly after a lucrative six months with Shanghai Shenua, where he earned £188,000-a-week. The Ivorian striker has since signed an 18-month contract with Turkish giants Galatasaray in January.
While at Gala the attacker will earn £8m in sign-on fees, which equates to over £5m per season along with a further £20,000 per match.
At Chelsea he was one of three players to enjoy pay parity as the highest earners at the club, alongside John Terry and Frank Lampard. He was earning £138,000 before his departure and shared in a £10m Champions League win bonus with the rest of the 25-man squad, equating to £400,000 per player.
His earnings have been supplemented with endorsements with Nike, Pepsi, Samsung, Orange France and Konami – all of which he donates to charity. He put more than £1m into his Didier Drogba Foundation in 2012 and his company, Clubnote, saw assets increase from £285,000 to £618,000 in 2011. In 2009 he donated a £3m signing-on fee with Pepsi towards the construction of a hospital in his country.
His generosity emerged again last December, when Drogba spent £750,000 on hosting a Champions League victory dinner for the Chelsea players and backroom staff, including party packs that contained commemorative jewellery.