23. John Terry (Chelsea) – £27.5m
John Terry has been the backbone of Chelsea and England for a decade, and has collected an impressive haul of trophies during that period. Last season he added a Champions League winners’ medal to his cabinet, which already included silverware from five FA Cup wins and three Premier League titles.
Due to his controversial nature the 32-year-old centre-back has perhaps not experienced the levels of income from endorsements that a player of his stature and profile would ordinarily expect. Nonetheless, Terry did enjoy a lucrative and long-running relationship with Umbro before the sportswear company dropped him last summer. He has also appeared in adverts for Samsung and Nationwide and enjoyed a sponsorship deal with football gaming series Pro Evolution Soccer.
He is paid £160,000-a-week at Chelsea and shrewdly inserted a clause in his contract that meant his pay would always be the highest in the squad. Terry is also one of a very small group of footballers to have been paid more than £1 million for their autobiography when he signed a deal with Harper Collins in 2004.
Terry has a company called Sports Market & Promotions, which showed assets of £151,262 at the end of 2010. His property portfolio includes two mansions in Surrey worth £10m, a property near Prestbury golf course in Chester and another in Morocco.