The guys at Goal.com have come up with the definitive list of the wealthiest footballers on the planet, and the list makes for interesting reading, detailing the root of their wealth as well as a detailed guide as to their riches.
50. Alessandro Nesta (Montreal Impact) – £16m
Alessandro Nesta’s trophy-laden decade with AC Milan came to an end in 2012 as the defender agreed an 18-month contract with Major League Soccer club Montreal Impact.
The Italian was released by Milan following 10 prolific seasons during which time he won two Champions Leagues and two Serie A titles, establishing himself as one of the world’s best defenders.
Prior to joining Milan he spent a total of 17 years with Lazio, where he won Serie A, the European Cup Winners’ Cup and the European Super Cup. The Rome-based side sold him for £26 million in 2002.
Nesta also collected 78 caps for his country and was part of the Italy side that lifted the World Cup in 2006.
In Canada, the 36-year-old is banking £3,500 a week, with the possibility of a further £28,000 in bonuses, but during his 10 years with the Rossoneri he earned in the region of £55-60,000 a week plus bonuses and enjoyed major sponsorship deals with the likes of Adidas. He was also a major earner in a successful Lazio side.
Nesta owns two luxury properties in Miami worth £1.25m, said to be his favourite holiday destination, along with property in Italy.
49. Yaya Toure (Manchester City) – £16.5m
Manchester City’s midfield colossus Yaya Toure is the heartbeat of their side that has won the Premier League and FA Cups in recent seasons and is the reigning African Player of the Year.
Toure swapped Spain for England when he joined Roberto Mancini’s team from Barcelona in 2010 for £24 million, having won the Champions League with the Catalan giants in 2009.
The Ivory Coast star earns £170,000 a week, but his salary can rise to as much as £220,000 a week including bonuses. Toure has also negotiated an image rights agreement at the Etihad worth a further £1.5m a year and has a Champions League qualification bonus of £800,000. When he signed the deal he was the highest earner in the Premier League.
Toure is one of the poster boys for Puma and has negotiated a four-year deal worth a seven-figure amount each year with the German sportwear giant. The deal includes an agreement in which Puma makes large-scale kit donations to underprivileged children in West Africa.
He began his playing career at Ivorian club, ASEC Mimosas, before moving to Beveren in Belgium, FC Metalurh Donetsk in the Ukraine, Olympiacos in Greece then Monaco, before he left France for Barcelona for £6.7m in 2007.
The 29-year-old is a strict Muslim and has over 70 international caps.
48. Michael Essien (Real Madrid – loan) – £16.5m
The Ghana international has collected an impressive trophy haul during his career, particularly during his time at Chelsea when he picked up Premier League and FA Cup winners’ medals.
Currently on loan to Spanish giants Real Madrid, the Essien spent five years in France with Lyon and Bastia before becoming the most expensive African player of all time when he signed for Chelsea for £24.4 million in 2005.
The 30-year-old, nicknamed The Bison due to his tough tackling, has a contract worth £90,000 a week, with the possibility of earning a further £550,000 a season in bonuses.
As one of Africa’s highest profile exports, Essien tops up his salary with a raft of sponsorship deals with companies such as MTN Africa, FANMILK Africa, Nike and Guinness, while other sponsorship deals have previously included Globacom, Samsung and Pepsi.
He has 52 caps for Ghana, but has not represented his country since 2011 and asked not to be considered for the 2013 African Cup of Nations, although he has suggested he may be available for his country in the future.
Essien owns properties in London and Ghana and set up the Michael Essien Foundation, which helps in providing essential provisions and infrastrcuture to under-resourced areas in his home nation . In 2011 he allowed Chelsea TV cameras to come into his London house to film ‘At Home with Michael Essien.
47. Shunsuke Nakamura (Yokohama F Marinos) – £17m
Shunsuke Nakamura is a national hero in Japan and has become one of the most prominent and successful Asian players of all time largely down to his performances and goals in the Champions League for Celtic.
The 34-year-old midfielder has played in Italy, Scotland and Spain since starting as a professional in 1997 with Yokohama aged 19.
He then signed for Reggina for £2 million in 2002, and after three years in Italy moved to Celtic in Glasgow where he picked up three league and two cup winners’ medals. He is probably best remembered for scoring the goal against Manchester United that put the club into the lucrative Champions League knock-out stages for the first time.
A brief spell in Spain with Espanyol followed – on a contract worth £25,000 a week – before he returned to his beloved Yokohama in 2010, turning down a £30,000 a week offer from Saudi Arabian club Al-Nassr.
A former captain of his national team, Nakamura won 98 caps for Japan and it is his success with the Samurai Blue and his breakthrough into top-flight European football that catapulted his wealth, namely through his off-field earnings.
He has enjoyed lucrative sponsorship deals with the likes of Konami, NAMCO, Yamada, Nissan (Yokohama parent company) and Adidas.
Before returning to the J-League, financial analysts in Japan calculated that re-signing Nakamura would generate £90m into Yokohama and the local economy in just two years, through additional sponsorship and TV deals and a 30% rise in commercial income, including kit sales.
46. Ashley Cole (Chelsea) – £17m
One of the world’s finest full-backs, Chelsea and England defender Ashley Cole has established himself as a vital component of both his club and national side in recent years.
The 32-year-old was brilliant as Chelsea lifted the Champions League in Munich last year – and received a £400,000 bonus from club owner Roman Abramovich for his prominent role in the victory.
Cole currently earns £130,000 a week in west London, but is reportedly set to become the world’s best paid defender in the summer after agreeing a new one-year deal with the club worth closer to £200,000 a week. He can also expect to earn up to £600,000 a year in club bonuses.
His first contract at Stamford Bridge was worth £90,000 a week, while previously at Arsenal, he earned in the region of £50,000 a week before leaving in 2006.
He enjoys a sponsorship deal with Nike and bumped up his earnings by releasing an autobiography called ‘My Defence’ in 2006, although his divorce from Cheryl Cole in 2010 impacted on his assets.
His company Kenzie Promotions showed £1.2 million of net assets as of June 2011. His property portfolio includes a house in Hampstead worth £5m, a Surrey mansion, a villa in Dubai and a £450,000 flat in Friern Barnet.
45. Gianluigi Buffon (Juventus) – £17m
Gianluigi Buffon is widely regarded to be one of the best goalkeepers in the world, having won over 100 caps for Italy during a glittering career that includes three league titles with Juventus and a World Cup success with the Azzurri in 2006.
Buffon is captain of both Italy and Juventus, and is also one of only three keepers to make our Top 50.
He made his debut for Parma aged 17 and in four years established himself as first choice, helping the club lift the Uefa Cup. He made his Italy debut at 19.
The talented goalkeeper was then signed by Juventus when aged 21 for over £30 million – a world-record fee for a player in his position.
The 35-year-old is a long-established member of the top earners in Serie A, commanding £100,000-a-week in Turin, with a further £407,000-a-year coming in the form of bonuses. He signed a contract extension earlier this year taking him to 2015.
As one of Italy’s highest-profile players, Buffon also commands big endorsement fees from the likes of Puma, Pepsi and Fiat.
44. Xavi (Barcelona) – £17.5m
Midfield maestro Xavi has come to typify two teams; the Barcelona side that have dominated in La Liga and the Spain national team that have won an unprecedented three consecutive major international tournaments.
Now with over 100 caps for his country, Xavi has lifted a World Cup and two European Championships, not to mention six league titles and three Champions Leagues with Barcelona. He is also the record appearance holder for Barcelona.
The 33-year-old – who was recently rewarded with a two-year extension at Barca to run to 2016 – earns £118,000-a week with a further £814,000-a-season in bonuses.
However he could earn a lot more. Last year he showed that money was not his biggest motivator, after reportedly turning down a mega-offer from Russian club Anzhi Makhachkala worth £340,000-a-week.
Despite his status in the game, Xavi has not chased a high profile or courted excessive sponsorships. He has enjoyed deals with the likes of Chevrolet and Iberdrola and has a lucrative boot deal with Adidas as one of their main poster boys. He owns a luxury mansion in his home city, Terrassa, and despite his incredible wealth, he lives with his parents and brothers.
43. David Trezeguet (River Plate) – £17.5m
France’s World Cup winning striker David Trezeguet is the third-highest goalscorer for Les Bleus, having amassed 34 goals in 71 games before announcing his retirement from international football in 2008.
Best known for his 11 years at Juventus, he was one of Serie A’s biggest earners during his time with the side, with his last contract at the Italian club worth £75,000-a-week plus bonuses. He is the fourth highest goalscorer in the Turin club’s history with 171 goals.
He made his name at Monaco scoring 60 goals in 113 matches over four seasons before moving to Italy in a £20 million transfer in 1999, aged 22.
The striker was released from Juventus in 2010 with a year left on his contract and signed for Hercules in Spain. 12 months later he moved to United Arab Emirates side Bani Yas, but an injury meant his £1.5m tax-free contract was mutually terminated after just three months.
Trezeguet, 35, currently earns £30,000-a-week with Argentine giants River Plate. He also enjoys a sponsorship deal with boot manufacturer Topper in South America.
42. Clarence Seedorf (Botafogo) – £18m
Clarence Seedorf was the first player to win the Champions League four times and he did so with three different teams; Ajax, Real Madrid and AC Milan.
He began his career at the famous Ajax youth academy and made his debut for the club aged 16 in 1992, before moving to Sampdoria in 1995. Seedorf left for Real Madrid a year later and spent three seasons in the Spanish capital before signing for Inter in a £20 million deal before his switch to Milan in 2002.
Now 36, the former Netherlands international has a rich heritage in the game having swapped a trophy-laden 10-year stay with AC Milan last summer for a final challenge in Brazil with Rio-based Botafogo. He collects £37,000-a-week at Botafogo along with a maximum of an extra £163,000 in bonuses. He also received a £500,000 signing-on fee.
Botafogo’s primary kit supplier Puma is paying an undisclosed percentage of the midfielder’s salary and as a result, Seedorf is used in marketing campaigns for both the brand and the club.
During his time in Italy, Seedorf was one of Serie A’s top earners, earning over £65,000 a week plus bonuses.
Seedorf was born in Suriname and is involved in social development projects there, building the Clarence Seedorf Stadium and setting up the Champions for Children Foundation.
He has enjoyed a long-running sponsorship arrangement with Adidas and owns several properties, including in the affluent Rio suburb of Leblon.
41. Daniele De Rossi (Roma) – £18m
World Cup winner Daniele De Rossi became the joint highest paid Italian footballer in Serie A last year after earning a five-year contract extension with Roma worth £102,000-a-week.
The deal meant the midfielder overtook team-mate and club captain Francesco Totti and put him on par with Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon as the best-paid Italian player in the league. His deal is also worth a further £300,000 in bonuses.
The 29-year-old Roma vice-captain came through the club’s youth team, making his debut over a decade ago and appearing over 400 times for the club, He has also amassed over 80 caps for the Azzurri.
De Rossi’s wealth has been helped by him owning 50% of his image rights, said to be worth £3.7 million a year. Off-the-field, De Rossi has a lucrative sponsorship deal with Adidas as one of their poster boys and has enjoyed major deals with Pringles and Electronic Arts. A divorce in 2009 was costly, however.
De Rossi has also talked of his desire to move to the MLS in the future, while potentially lucrative moves to Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City have also been mooted.
40. Park Ji-Sung (QPR) – £18m
Park Ji-Sung is the most decorated Asian footballer in European history, having won four Premier League titles and becoming the first Asian footballer to win the Champions League – which he did with Manchester United in 2008.
Now 32 years old, Park left home for Japan in 2000 to play for Kyoto Purple Sanga before moving to PSV Eindhoven in 2002. In his last season in Holland he starred in the Champions League as PSV narrowly lost to AC Milan in the semi-finals.
He joined Man Utd for a £4 million signing in the summer of 2005 before joining QPR for an undisclosed fee last summer.
The Hoops midfielder is mobbed like a pop star when at home in South Korea and before his retirement from international football in 2011 had won 100 caps for The Reds.
Park earns £65,000-a-week in west London, taking a hit on the £75,000-a-week salary he earned at Manchester United, but his considerable off-field earnings certainly make up for that loss.
Gillette used the midfielder to replace one of their famous ‘trio of stars’ in a series of very lucrative ad campaigns across Asia. Park replaced Thierry Henry to appear alongside Roger Federer and Tiger Woods.
Park signed a 10-year sponsorship deal with Nike worth £333,000-a-year – the biggest ever awarded to an Asian sportsman. He has also enjoyed a long-running sponsorship deal with Asiana Airlines since 2007 that is worth £125,000-a-year. The deal includes free first-class tickets for himself and family members.
His investments include a museum, football academy and charity called JS Foundation in South Korea. He also bought a house for his parents worth £2m.
39. Damien Duff (Fulham) – £18.5m
Fulham winger Damien Duff turned 34 in early March and has amassed more than 350 league appearances in 17 years as a Premier League player, while also appearing 100 times for Republic of Ireland.
He earns £45,000-a-week in west London with a further £150,000 available in bonuses. He won his 100th and final cap for Republic of Ireland at Euro 2012 before announcing his international retirement.
Prior to signing for Fulham, Duff played for Newcastle United, where he was earning £70,000-a-week. However, with two years left on his contract, he left for an undisclosed sum in 2009 after the Magpies were relegated from the Premier League.
Duff enjoyed a lucrative contract at Chelsea too after signing for a £17 million fee from Blackburn Rovers. At Stamford Bridge he won two Premier League titles in three years before departing for St James’ Park in a £5m transfer.
His company Lightzest showed a ‘net worth’ of £1.1m as of July 2011, while his investments have included properties in London, Ireland, Newcastle and a series of beachfront properties in the Caribbean. Duff’s off-field earnings include a sponsorship deal with Lucozade.
With one eye on a future after hanging up his boots, Duff has teamed up with Ireland rugby union legend Brian O’Driscoll to invest in a sports management company called IKON, with the pair acting as mentors to clients.
38. Paul Scholes (Manchester United) – £19m
Manchester United midfielder Paul Scholes is still pulling the strings for Sir Alex Ferguson’s side 19 years after making his debut for the club.
Having come out of a six-month retirement last year at the request of his manager, the 38-year-old has made the third-highest number of appearances for the Old Trafford club and shows no signs of retiring again just yet.
With a staggering 10 Premier League titles and a Champions League winners’ medal (he missed the 1999 victory through suspension), Scholes was hailed in 2011 by Barcelona’s Xavi as the best player in his position over the last two decades.
Scholes earns £75,000-a-week with bonuses worth a further £200,000-a-year. He has preferred to avoid the spotlight and stereotypical trappings of a footballer throughout his career.
Although he did allow himself a lucrative and long-running relationship with Nike, the deals stipulated few public obligations. He has never been tempted by sponsorship deals or media work to bump up his profile and increase off-pitch earnings.
A measure of the man came when Scholes reportedly bought new boots from a local JJB Sports shop after coming out of retirement rather than demanding them for free.
Scholes who suffers from asthma, retired from England service in 2004 as explained in his autobiography called ‘My Story’, which was published in 2011. He owns a £10 million mansion on Saddleworth Moor in Greater Manchester and likes to drive Audi and Mercedes cars. As of April 2011, Paul Scholes Ltd reported a ‘net worth’ of £1.1m.
37. Andrea Pirlo (Juventus) – £19.5m
Italian World Cup winner Andrea Pirlo has proved many doubters wrong since leaving AC Milan as a free agent for Juventus in 2011. The classy midfielder was the fulcrum of the Bianconeri team that won Serie A in his first season in Turin.
The 33-year-old played for AC Milan for 10 years, winning both Serie A and the Champions League twice, having joined for a £15 million fee from city rivals Inter with whom he spent three seasons. He was earning double at San Siro compared to his current salary.
Pirlo earns £47,000-a-week with the reigning Serie A champions in Turin, with a potential bonus of £407,000 a season.
Pirlo’s wealth is a result of being a top performer for the last 15 years in Serie A and Italy and including two huge transfers. He has a lucrative sponsorship deal with Nike. He also has a stake in his father’s two ironworks in Brescia called Elg Steel.
36. Joe Cole (West Ham United) – £19.5m
When Joe Cole was 16 years old, Manchester United wanted to sign the Hammer for £10 million, but the move never materialised. Cole did leave Upton Park for Chelsea in a £6.6m deal in 2003, where he collected three Premier League titles and three FA Cup winners’ medals.
In west London, he picked up a salary worth £80,000-a-week and enjoyed a lucrative sponsorship with Adidas, before joining Liverpool in 2010 which included a reported £2m signing on fee.
The move never really worked out for the skillful attacker though and he was loaned out to Lille for a year prior to his recent return to West Ham.
His disappointing but lucrative spell at Liverpool finally came to an end in the January transfer window after the Anfield club allowed the England midfielder to make an emotional return to his beloved West Ham after almost 10 years away from Upton Park.
The Reds decided to remove 31 year-old Cole’s £90,000-a-week salary from the Kop wage bill and agreed a £3m pay-off with the Londoner, who had 18 months remaining on his contract.
Cole’s properties include a £5m West London house and £1.5m luxury apartment in Dubai Palm Jumeirah. Joe Cole Promotions showed £591,000 of net assets in 2010-11. He married his fitness instructor wife Carly Zucker in 2009 and received a £2m fee for the wedding photos from Hello Magazine, but donated the money to charity.
35. Bastian Schweinsteiger (Bayern Munich) – £20m
Midfield enforcer Bastian Schweinsteiger has been a mainstay of the Bayern Munich and Germany team for close to a decade despite being only 28 years old.
The Bayern vice-captain is approaching 100 caps for Germany and has played in five major tournaments for his country. He has made over 400 games for his club and has won five German Cup winners’ medals – but has also suffered major heartache losing two Champions League finals.
A winner of five league titles in Germany, Schweinsteiger’s importance to Bayern is underlined by his lucrative contract worth £156,000-a-week, plus potential bonuses worth a further £488,000-a-year.
His contract runs to 2016 and he has publicly suggested he may leave the Allianz Arena at the end of that contract, when he will be approaching 32. His wealth was dented ever-so-slightly recently when he was fined by his club for wearing the wrong socks to training.
He has a lucrative sponsorship deal with Adidas as one of their poster boys, plus further income from endorsement deals with Right Guard and Funny-Frisch crisps taking his total income to £8 million a year.
34. Arjen Robben (Bayern Munich) – £20m
Dutch winger Arjen Robben has enjoyed an illustrious career that has seen him play in four countries and be the subject of three major transfers so far.
Despite being prone to injury the 29-year-old has appeared in two Champions League finals and was an integral part of the Netherlands team that finished runners-up in the 2010 World Cup final.
Robben’s first big move saw him leave PSV Eindhoven for £12.1 million for big-spending Chelsea in 2004 where he won the Premier League twice and the FA Cup once. Three years later, he left for Real Madrid in a £24m deal.
The Bayern Munich attacker signed for £21m from Madrid in 2009. He signed an improved contract last year, earns £85,000-a-week and has appearance fees and bonus payments worth up to £488,000-a-year.
His off-field earnings have been boosted by sponsorship deals with the likes of Adidas – Robben is a brand ambassador for the German company and has appeared in a number of promotions for them.
33. Neymar (Santos) – £20m
Neymar is not only one of the most coveted players in world football, he has also become very marketable and, as a result, is the poster boy for Brazil as the nation prays for a World Cup victory on home soil in 2014.
His contract at Santos is worth £110,000-a-week after tax and the forward, who has 17 goals in 27 games for his country, also has a bonus worth up to £244,000-a-year. Seven companies including Spanish bank Santander contribute to his salary.
Having just turned 21, Neymar is by far the youngest player in our Top 50. Such is the increasing strength of the Brazilian economy and the finances in the domestic game, he is not expected to move to Europe until after the next World Cup despite being repeatedly linked with Barcelona and Real Madrid.
He commands several million pounds a year off the pitch from 12 lucrative sponsors including Nike, Panasonic, Heliar, VW, Claro, Santander, Guarana Antarctica, Ambev, Red Bull, Unilever, tenys.pe and Lupo. He is also making money from the sale of official Neymar merchandise and advertising agency Loducca created Neymar’s own personal brand logo, featuring the N, J and R (Neymar Junior) with the N styled to match Neymar’s Brazilian shirt number 11.
Last year his wealth was destined to grow further after he handed control of his image rights to Brazil’s richest man, Eike Batista. Management agency DIS own 40 per cent of Neymar’s economic rights.
His property portfolio includes a gated mansion worth £1.25 million, a luxury £500,000 triplex and a £100,000 apartment in Sao Paulo. He also bought the mother of his child a penthouse worth £625,000.
Neymar also owns a yacht worth £5m and drives a Porsche Panamera Turbo worth £350,000. His wealth is reduced by £9,300-a-month – the amount he pays in child support.
32. Petr Cech (Chelsea) – £20m
Chelsea’s Petr Cech has enjoyed a fruitful career since joining the club for £7 million from Rennes in 2004, and was a key part of the Blues side that lifted the Champions League in Munich last season.
The Czech Republic goalkeeper has won a number of titles at Stamford Bridge during his eight years at the club, including three Premier League titles and four FA Cups.
He earns £100,000-a-week and can earn up to £600,000 in bonuses. Club owner Roman Abramovich shared out a £10m bonus (£400,000 per player) for lifting the coveted Champions League trophy in Munich.
The Czech international boasts lucrative sponsorship deals with Adidas, E-on, Sport Invest and Ceska Sporitelna taking his annual earnings to £7m. The deal with Adidas covers gloves, boots and – uniquely – protective headgear. His deal with Adidas is one of the biggest in football and was worth £17.5m over five years (£2.5m-a-year) when it was agreed in 2008.
Cech has made 88 appearances for his country. Before joining Chelsea, the 30-year-old played for Chmel Blsany and Sparta Prague ahead of two seasons with Rennes.
31. Francesco Totti (Roma) – £20.5m
Francesco Totti has long been referred to as a ‘Golden Boy’ of Italian football. A Roma star and a World Cup winner in 2006, Totti is the joint-second top goalscorer in Serie A history after notching close to 300 goals.
Totti is now 36, but still commands a weekly salary of £81,000 and has a potential annual bonus of £244,000. He has been one of the biggest earners in the Italian top flight for almost 15 years.
His profile remains exceptionally high, helped by the media interest in him and his wife, glamorous former showgirl Ilary Blasi. The pair are referred to as the Italian Posh and Becks. This high profile has helped Totti maintain lucrative off-field earnings. Sponsors and partners include Party Poker, Faceoff, ID-box, Nobile Spa and Domus Marmi.
He also published a book deal in 2006 called ‘I’m Going to Chip Him’, while he owns The Never Without You fashion range, the Number Ten football school and Totti Top Sport motorbike team. Properties include a luxury Rome home worth at least £4.3 million and a luxury villa in Dubai worth £2.5m.
30. Philipp Lahm (Bayern Munich) – £20.5m
One of the most highly rated full-backs in the world, the Philipp Lahm is a one-club player who has progressed through the Bayern ranks and is closing in on 100 caps for his country.
The Bayern and Germany captain has four DFB-Pokal cups and four Bundesliga titles to his name, while he was also part of the Germany side that finished runners-up at Euro 2008 to Spain.
He earns a salary of £141,000-a-week and an annual bonus worth up to £488,000. With endorsements included he earns £12 million-a-year.
Lahm published a controversial best-selling autobiography in 2011, called ‘Der feine Unterschied: Wie man heute Spitzenfussballer wird’ (The Subtle Difference – How to Become a Top Footballer). The book received extensive media attention and caused quite a stir in Germany as it criticised former coaches including Rudi Voller and Ottmar Hitzfeld and recommended gay footballers not to come out.
He has a very substantial sponsorship deal with Adidas, plus endorsements with Nintendo, RTL, Libella and Cewe Fotobuch. He has established the Philipp Lahm-Stiftung foundation to support underprivileged children and is also an official ambassador representing ‘Fifa for SOS Children’s Villages’.
29. Miroslav Klose (Lazio) – £20.5m
Miroslav Klose has established himself as one of the most feared goalscorers in Europe since making his Germany debut over a decade ago.
He won the Golden Boot at the 2006 World Cup after notching five goals in the finals for the second successive time and his overall tally of 14 goals at World Cup tournaments leaves him just one behind Brazil’s Ronaldo as the all-time record scorer.
In all, Polish-born Klose has 67 goals in 127 appearances for Germany, just one behind the all-time record set by Gerd Mueller in the 1960s and 70s. He is also the second-most capped player behind Lothar Matthaus.
Now 34, Klose is the only player to have scored at least five goals in consecutive World Cups – as well as the only player to have scored at least four in three different tournaments.
Currently playing for Lazio, where his salary is £31,000-a-week, plus bonuses worth £244,000-a-year, he has also played for German giants Bayern Munich, Werder Bremen and Kaiserslautern.
He has a long-standing relationship with Nike and has properties in Bavaria, Poland and Rome.
28. Alessandro Del Piero (Sydney FC) – £21m
The World Cup winner left his beloved Juventus for Sydney FC last summer after 19 years in Turin during which he scored 290 goals in 705 appearances.
He is Juventus’ all-time leading goalscorer in both the Champions League and Serie A, and was vital as they won six league titles and a Champions League during his spell at the club.
The Italian is used to being a crowd favourite following his success in Turin and interest in him has been whipped into a frenzy following his transfer to the A-League.
Now 38, he still commands a £31,000-a-week salary with as much as £500,000 available in annual bonuses – he is the highest paid player ever in the A-League. After some initial doubts, Del Piero is expected to commit to Sydney for the optional second year of his contract too.
His wealth has been building for a substantial period. In 2000 he was thought to be the world’s best-paid football player from salary, bonuses and endorsements.
He maintains a lucrative sponsorship with Adidas, while in his prime he was one of football’s most marketed players. He has enjoyed sponsorship and image rights deals with Fiat, EA Sports, Suzuki, Pepsi, Bliss, Cepu and Walt Disney.
27. Nicolas Anelka (Juventus – loan) – £21.5m
During a colourful career Nicolas Anelka was nicknamed Le Sulk in part for demanding better pay while at Arsenal. He has played for some of Europe’s elite clubs including Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid, Chelsea and is currently on loan at Serie A giants Juventus from Shanghai Shenhua.
The much-travelled striker was enjoying a lucrative end to his career after signing a contract with Chinese side Shenhua worth £166,000 a week, and a possible further £200,000 in bonuses.
However a wage dispute with Shanghai led to the French striker signing for Italian champions Juventus on loan for five months, with the possibility of a further year.
In addition to his salary, the 33-year-old striker commands a substantial sponsorship deal with Adidas, while last year he signed a 12-month sponsorship with The9 worth £2.1 million.
Big-money transfers have certainly swollen the Frenchman’s personal fortune. He left Arsenal with a league winners’ medal for Madrid in a £22.3m deal in 1999. He won the Champions League with Real, but after just 12 months in the Spanish capital he opted for a move to PSG in a £20m deal.
Further big-money moves included a £13m transfer to Manchester City and a £15m move to Stamford Bridge in 2008. Clubs have paid a total of £86.8m in transfer fees for Anelka during his career.
With one eye on life after football, Anelka has revealed that he fancies working in the film industry. He has properties across the world including luxury homes in Dubai that cost £2.75m.
26. Wesley Sneijder (Galatasaray) – £22m
Dutch midfield maestro Wesley Sneijder recently swapped Inter – the club where he won a Serie A title and Champions League under Jose Mourinho in 2010 – for the Turkish giants Galatasaray.
The £8.4 million transfer taking Sneijder to Istanbul ended several months of stand off between player and club. He will receive £120,000-a-week at the Super Lig giants, including £21,000 in potential bonuses.
The former Ajax academy player joined Inter in a £12.5m deal from Real Madrid in 2009 after two years in Spain. Previously the playmaker had made a big-money transfer to the Spanish capital from Ajax for £22.5m.
As a pivotal player and captain of the Dutch national team with 90 caps under his belt, Sneijder has enjoyed and continues to enjoy lucrative sponsorship deals with Nike and Pirelli. His profile remains high, due in part to his marriage to glamorous TV presenter Yolanthe Cabau. Sneijder has properties in Amsterdam, Madrid, the US and Milan.
25. Fernando Torres (Chelsea) – £25m
As part of the all-conquering Spanish national team, Fernando Torres has earned over 100 caps and helped his country to win a World Cup and two European Championships. He also picked up Champions League and FA Cup winners’ medals with Chelsea in 2012.
Torres is the joint top earner at the European champions, taking home £160,000-a-week since arriving at the London club for a British record £50 million from Liverpool in January 2011.
Despite a hugely-disappointing spell in London, El Nino continues to enjoy a high profile and sought-after image that earns him substantial sums in sponsorships and endorsements to supplement his pay.
He earns over £2m a year from Nike, Pepsi, El Corte Ingles, Aviva, Banco Gallego and PUIG. Ahead of Euro 2012 he also cashed in by appearing in advertising campaigns for Cruzcampo, Chevrolet, Continental and Gatorade.
Former sponsors include Kellogg’s, Pringles, Pepe Jeans, Cuatro TV, Telepizza, Racer, Mahou and Toshiba, while the 28-year-old Spanish hitman also released his autobiography called ‘Torres: El Nino: My Story’ in 2009.
He has exclusive properties in Madrid and London and has been spotted driving a £160,000 Aston Martin DBS.
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.
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.
22. Franck Ribery (Bayern Munich) – £29m
Franck Ribery joined German giants Bayern Munich from Marseille in 2007 for a fee of £21 million – then a club record. Since then he has picked up two Bundesliga titles and been a runner-up in the Champions League twice, scoring at a rate of a goal every three games.
The 29-year-old winger became the highest paid player in Bayern’s history when he was offered a five-year contract worth £170,000-a-week in 2010, with an additional £488,000 available in bonuses.
An established and high-profile French international with 69 caps, he enjoys off-field earnings through deals with Nike (£1m-a-year) and EA Sports. He also starred in a one-off TV show called ‘The Franck Ribery TV show’, which was aired in France and sponsored by Nike.
His commerciality suffered a blow in 2010 after he was indicted for discretions in his personal life, for which he will stand trial later this year. Also in 2010 the French Football Federation opened a disciplinary case against Ribery and four other French players including Nicolas Anelka and Patrice Evra who went on strike at the World Cup in South Africa.
21. Iker Casillas (Real Madrid) – £30m
Iker Casillas is a goalkeeper that has won everything. So far he has five Liga titles, two Champions League titles, a World Cup and two European Championship medals to his name, and at 31 he is already Spain’s most capped player having made 134 appearances for his country.
A one-club man, Casillas broke into the Real Madrid first-team aged just 18. He currently earns £94,000-a-week and can pick up a further £488,000 a year in bonuses. He has a contract for life with the club, meaning he will automatically be given a contract extension so long as he has played 30 games in the previous season.
With a high-profile image and as the captain of Real Madrid and Spain, Casillas enjoys several multi-million pound sponsorship deals. Last year he signed a lucrative deal with Adidas to wear their boots and gloves, ending a long-running relationship with Reebok.
He also enjoys endorsement deals with Hyundai, Phillips, Head and Mahou. During Euro 2012 he also appeared in marketing campaigns for the likes of Iberd, Movistar, Chevrolet and Continental.
As a young boy Casillas cost his parents £1 million after forgetting to post his dad’s pools predictions on the weekend his father correctly predicted all 14 scores. He boasts a £1.5m luxury mansion in northern Madrid and a three-story luxury mansion in his hometown of Avila.
20. Robinho (AC Milan) – £31m
Robinho has won 90 caps and scored 26 goals for Brazil, and garnered large pay and sign-on fees during that time thanks to three massive transfers he has been part of.
The 29-year-old Brazilian was dubbed ‘the new Pele’ after signing his first professional contract with Santos aged 18 and at just 21 he left Santos to sign for Real Madrid for a £22 million fee, where he won La Liga twice.
In 2008 he left to sign for big-spending Man City in an incredible £32.5m move, where he earned £160,000-a-week in salary, approximately three times the amount he was earning in Spain.
Two years later he departed for AC Milan in a £10m deal, following a loan spell back at Santos. In Italy he earns £63,000 a week with potential to earn £326,000 in bonuses and has collected a Serie A title. Robinho has openly stated his desire to return to Brazil and another lucrative move seems on the horizon for the player.
His off-field earnings have been boosted by multi-million pound agreements with the likes of Nike, however in 2011 Robinho filed a lawsuit in Sao Paulo in an attempt to break the agreement. Nike won and so he will continue with the deal until after the World Cup in Brazil next year.
19. Steven Gerrard (Liverpool) – £32m
The Liverpool captain is Anfield’s icon having spent his whole career at the club. Since joining the academy as a seven-year-old the midfielder has gone on to make over 600 appearances for the Reds – winning two FA Cups, a Champions League and a Uefa Cup in the process.
Despite being publicity-shy, Gerrard has a lucrative endorsement deal with Adidas, which earns him £1 million a year, while his salary of £125,000-a-week has also been supplemented by sponsorship deals with Lucozade and a book deal.
Now 32, Gerrard was made England captain last summer in an appointment that will bring additional commercial perks should he choose.
He has 11 past or present company directorships or secretary appointments, including several tax-efficient limited liability partnerships making money from the film industry.
His company Steven Gerrard Promotions had a net worth of £3.9m as of March 2012, while The Steven Gerrard Foundation had ‘assets’ worth £128,128 at the end of 2011.
Gerrard’s property portfolio includes a Dubai skyscraper, a mansion in Freshfield, worth £3.35m and an investment in Warehouse Kitchen & Bar, a friend’s business in Southport.
18. Robbie Fowler (Unattached) – £32.5m
Surprising as it may be to some, Liverpool goalscoring legend Robbie Fowler is eligible for our list as he hasn’t officially retired, despite leaving his role as player/coach at Thai club Muangthong United last year.
Fowler, now 37, is the fourth highest scorer in Premier League history after netting 162 league goals for Liverpool, Leeds and Manchester City. He was nicknamed ‘God’ by the Kop and scored 183 goals in total for the Anfield club.
He signed a big-money move to Leeds for a £12 million fee in 2001, before further transfers to City, an emotional return to Liverpool and moves to Australian A League teams Perth Glory and North Queensland Fury.
The Toxteth-born forward is somewhat of a trailblazer for footballers off the pitch too after building up an impressive property and business portfolio over the years. His property portfolio includes more than 80 properties in Liverpool, Oldham, Scotland and Wales, many of which he rents out as buy-to-lets.
Fowler has launched a “property academy” to teach the secrets of buy-to-let investing. The Robbie Fowler Property Academy will share secrets to succeeding through free workshops on property investing.
The striker has also invested in several racehorses, while Robbie Fowler Sports Promotions had a ‘net worth’ of £750,000 as of March 2012. He released an autobiography in 2005 and tops up his income with work as a TV pundit.
17. Frank Lampard (Chelsea) – £33m
Frank Lampard has won all manner of trophies during his 12-year spell at Chelsea, including Premier League titles, FA Cups and last year the elusive first Champions League in the club’s history.
Individual accolades have also highlighted his efforts, particularly when he finished runner-up in the 2005 Ballon d’Or.
The midfielder’s stay at Stamford Bridge may be coming to an end, but his public profile is as high as ever due to media interest in his relationship with fiancée and television presenter Christine Bleakley.
Lampard’s £125,000-a-week contract – the highest in Britain when he signed it in 2008 – ends in the summer and Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich is unlikely to offer him an extension.
There will be no shortage of lucrative offers for the 34-year-old who has proved to be one of the most effective attacking midfielders to grace the Premiership.
Endorsement deals with Adidas and Pepsi continue to boost his annual earnings.
The England international lives in a newly renovated house in Chelsea worth £10 million. He also owns a London flat, which was rented by MP Peter Luff. Last year Lampard put his Esher mansion on the market for £7m – £3m more than he paid in 2004.
He also has three apartments in London’s Docklands, a three-bedroom lodge in Surrey worth £750,000, a £165,000 terrace home in East London, a flat in Leyton worth £187,000, two properties in Cambridge worth £500,000 and a four bedroom apartment in Barcelona.
The former West Ham academy player is also understood to be demolishing a vacant two-storey warehouse in West London to build a four-storey home. Similar-size properties in the area sell for about £3m.
Lampard has three current or previous company director or secretary appointments. Frank Lampard Promotions reported that as of the end of 2011, it had ‘assets’ worth £2.3m. He would have appeared higher up the list, but a costly separation from former fiancée Elen Rivas in 2008 impacted on his net wealth.
16. Ryan Giggs (Manchester United) – £34.5m
The most decorated player in English football established himself in the Manchester United first team at the age of 17 and has remained there ever since. While at United the Welshman has won an astonishing 12 Premier League titles, four FA Cups and two Champions Leagues.
He is also the only player to have scored in every Premier League season since its inauguration in 1992.
Lucrative book deals and numerous multi-million pound endorsements came his way through sponsors such as Reebok and Fuji. Now 39, Giggs can no longer command such massive sponsorship deals, although he continues to enjoy a relationship with Reebok and earns £75,000-a-week at Old Trafford.
The verteran midfielder may have been even higher up our Top 50, but his off-the-pitch reputation took a battering when he took to the High Court in 2011 and won a super-injunction to keep details of an affair with model Imogen Thomas out of the press. He subsequently lost a damages claim against The Sun in relation to the matter, with the whole legal process costing him at least £1 million.
Giggs also suffered substantial legal bills and losses sustained when a property venture with England coach Gary Neville left the pair £1.5m out of pocket.
However, assets in Ryan Giggs Ltd continue to rise and latest accounts show them to be at £5.2m, as of the end of 2011. His property portfolio includes a family home in Worsley worth in the region of £3m.
He has a further 12 current or previous company director or secretary appointments.
15. Robbie Keane (LA Galaxy) – £35.5m
Republic of Ireland’s record goalscorer Robbie Keane has enjoyed a successful spell with David Beckham’s former team LA Galaxy since signing for the MLS side in 2011.
Keane’s contract in the US is worth £35,000-a-week, with up to £311,000 available in bonuses and image rights per year.
With 54 goals in 122 games for Ireland, Keane is also his country’s most capped player. As a proven goalscorer at club and international level, the much-travelled striker has earned a large percentage of his personal wealth from the many transfers he has enjoyed throughout his career.
His first big-money moves were from Wolves to Coventry for £6 million in 1999 (a British record for a teenager at the time) before moving to Inter Milan the following year for £13m. He has played for 10 different clubs and has cost over £75m in transfer fees, including a short-lived move to Liverpool for a £19m fee.
The 32-year-old enjoys a lucrative sponsorship deal with Puma and has released an autobiography. He owns a London mansion worth £5.6m, a luxury home in LA, as well as properties in Ireland.
14. David Villa (Barcelona) – £37m
David Villa has played a key role for Barcelona and Spain during the club and national side’s most successful spells ever, as well as being la Roja’s all-time top goalscorer.
He scored vital goals during Spain’s 2010 World Cup win, as well as at the European Championship in 2008 where he was top goalscorer. At Barcelona he has fitted in to their philosophy and popped up with some timely strikes in big matches, particularly in the 2010-11 Champions League final win over Manchester United.
Villa’s first big transfer came in 2005 when Valencia agreed to pay Zaragoza £10 million for the striker, before Barca paid £34m for his services in 2010 and offered him a contract worth £94,000-a-week, with up to £814,000 a year on offer through bonuses.
The two major transfers in Villa’s career will have earned him substantial wealth as Spanish clubs are obliged to pay their players 15% of their transfer fees. Villa enjoys a high profile status in Spain and that is reflected in a lucrative and long-running agreement with Adidas, while he also commands substantial off-field income from sponsorship agreements with Big Cola, Mahou, Maxibon and Gameloft.
13. Raul (Al Sadd) – £38m
The cultured striker was one of the most feared marskmen in Europe during his time at Real Madrid between 1994-2010 as he led them to six Liga titles and three Champions League trophies.
The Spanish attacker, now 35, spent 16 years at Madrid and is the club’s all-time top goal scorer with 323 goals in 741 appearances. He also plundered 44 goals in 102 appearances for his country and is the top scorer in all Uefa competitions with 77 goals.
He left his beloved Real for Schalke in 2010, where he enjoyed two successful years including winning a domestic cup and reaching the Champions League semi-finals. He also scored the 400th goal of his professional career.
Last summer the Spaniard agreed to switch to Qatar Stars League club Al Sadd last summer, where he earns £191,000-a-week tax free and can potentially earn bonuses of up to £244,000-a-year.
Despite his value diminishing as he enters the final chapters in a glorious career, Raul still enjoys a lucrative sponsorship arrangement with Adidas. He also boasts properties including a multi-million pound luxury mansion in the same Madrid neighbourhood as Fernando Torres.
12. Michael Owen (Stoke City) – £40.5m
Michael Owen burst onto the scene at the World Cup in 1998 when he slalomed his way through Argentina’s defence to score for England, and within three years he had both spearheaded his club Liverpool to a treble and picked up the 2001 Ballon d’Or trophy.
With 158 goals in 297 games for Liverpool and 40 strikes in his 89 appearances for England, his stats speak for themselves, but in recent times the 33 year-old has has failed to continue his prolific scoring, particularly since leaving Newcastle in 2009.
Despite his barren run, his image is still extremely marketable. Owen remained one of the faces for Umbro thanks to a long-term sponsorship deal worth £2 million a year, before swapping for Nike at the end of 2012. He has been an ambassador for Swiss watchmakers Tissot since 1998 and also enjoys a long-running contract with Dubai property agent The First Group. Other major endorsements have included Persil and Nestle.
His company, Owen Promotions, showed a ‘net worth’ of £7.5m in its 2010-11 accounts – a rise of £400,000 on the previous year.
He has a love of horses and jointly owns Manor House Stables in Cheshire with Betfair co-founder Andrew Black. Manor House has 90 horses in training (Owen’s share is 10) and the stable produced 81 winners in 2012, generating £850,000 of prize money, including the 2012 Queen Mary with Ceiling Kitty.
Owen has property in Portugal as well as apartments in Liverpool, a Dubai villa valued at £1.7m and a Flintshire family home worth £1.7m. He also travels around in his own personal helicopter worth a cool £2m.
11. Thierry Henry (New York Red Bulls) – £41m
Thierry Henry is Arsenal’s record goalscorer with 228 goals in eight glorious seasons that saw the club win the Premier League twice and the FA Cup three times. The former France international spent his final two years at the club as captain, and led them to the 2005-06 Champions League final.
He was part of the brilliant France team that won both the 1998 World Cup on home soil and the 2000 European Championship held in Belgium and Netherlands. He is also les Bleus’ all-time top goalscorer with 51.
Henry moved to Barcelona in 2007 for £16 million after signing a four-year deal with the Catalan club worth £4.6m a season. He enjoyed unprecedented success including a sextuple in 2009, which included La Liga, Champions League and FIFA Club World Cup success.
Last year the striker returned to the Gunners for two months on loan, but he now plies his trade in the MLS with New York Red Bulls where he commands £60,000-a-week, with the potential to earn up to £373,000-a-year in success/appearance bonuses and rights.
Off-the-field, the 1998 World Cup and Euro 2000 winner enjoys a lucrative sponsorship deal with Puma, while he has been paid handsomely to release a book.
While he can no longer command the commercial deals enjoyed at his peak, his wealth has been greatly enhanced over the years by being one of the most successfully marketed footballers. His ‘va va voom’ TV ads for Renault are perhaps the most memorable.
He is a director of a company called Cluemere Ltd, which showed that as of 31 March 2012, it had ‘cash at bank’ of £55,489 and ‘assets’ worth £64,242. His properties include a £5.6m pad in Hampstead and a 5,607 square feet luxury apartment in New York that cost £9.2m in 2010.
10. Rio Ferdinand (Manchester United) – £42m
One of England’s most elegant centre-halves, the Manchester United stopper made his name at West Ham before completing a then British transfer record breaking move to Leeds United worth £18 million. At the time the fee was also a world record for a defender.
In 2002 he joined Man Utd for £30m, where he has enjoyed great success under Sir Alex Ferguson, winning the Premier League five times amongst other trophies.
Now 34, Peckham-born Ferdinand still commands a salary of £130,000-a-week at Old Trafford, with a potential bonus of up £300,000 a year.
He has a staggering 3.8m followers on Twitter, but found himself at the centre of a controversy for receiving payment from Mars to promote chocolate bar Snickers. Advertising watchdog the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) subsequently cleared him of any wrongdoing.
Outside of football, Ferdinand has a diverse range of interests and has 10 current or previous company director or secretary appointments.
Ferdinand helped create record label White Chalk Music, while he also has an interest in online lifestyle magazine #5 and fashion label fivebyriofredinand.com. The latest accounts for White Chalk Music (30 April 2012), showed a net worth of -£600,000.
He has an interest in Scion Films Sale And Leaseback Sixth Llp. Latest accounts to April 2012 reported ‘net worth’ of £62m.
Endorsements include Mars and Nike, while Ferdinand has an extensive property portfolio including houses in London, a luxury mansion in Alderley Edge, worth over £2.2m, as well as places in Barbados, Turks and Caicos Islands and Morocco. He also has an investment in a restaurant called Rosso located in Manchester.
His cars include a £190,000 Bentley Arnage and a £120,000 Bentley Continental, although he received a six-month driving ban after being caught speeding three times in five weeks. He is a fervent supporter of charities and has been particularly vocal when speaking out against knife crime.
9. Rivaldo (Sao Caetano) – £45.5m
A former Fifa World Player of the Year, Ballon d’Or winner and European Footballer of the Year, Rivaldo has won just about everything possible in football.
Now 40, the former Brazil international recently returned home after signing for Sao Caetano, the fifteenth club of his illustrious career, after leaving Angolan club Kabuscorp at the end of last year. Scarred by poverty, he still shows the signs, including missing teeth and bowlegs. The story of Rivaldo is truly remarkable.
He will be best remembered for the five years he spent at Barcelona and the two seasons with AC Milan, which included winning the Champions League. He also won the 2002 World Cup with Brazil; enjoying lucrative sponsorship deals with the likes of Nike.
He signed for Barca from Deportivo La Coruna for £16 million in 1997 before renewing his contract in 2001 to become the highest paid footballer in the world on £4m a year. He was released from this contract and signed for AC Milan on a free transfer in 2002.
Rivaldo’s wealth has continued to build during the latter stages of his career. He earned £5m a year during his three seasons with Bunyodkor in Uzbekistan, while he negotiated a further £2m a year from image rights.
He has a stake in a travel company and an art and design company while he boasts properties in Brazil and land in Angola.
8. Zlatan Ibrahimovic (PSG) – £47m
One of Sweden’s most highly rated players ever, Zlatan Ibrahimovic is the most expensive footballer of all time after transferring for fees totaling £150 million. The towering striker has proved his ability on the pitch though, winning seven league titles during a career that has spanned seven different clubs.
The biggest fee paid for him was the £55m that Barcelona paid to take him from Inter Milan.
In 2012 the powerful forward completed a lucrative £16m transfer from AC Milan to Paris, a move which saw his salary soar to an eye-watering £220,000-a-week net of tax. His salary is now thought to be second only to Samuel Eto’o.
He currently resides in Paris and his assets include properties in Malmo, Stockholm, the Swedish ski resort of Are, Milan and New York. Last summer he also bought an island on Lake Malaren, to the west of Stockholm, for £2.5m, which comes complete with 500 hectares of hunting ground.
The name Zlatan was trademarked in 2003, meaning Ibrahimovic received exclusive rights to the name for certain products, including sporting goods, clothing and shoes. He enjoys a lucrative sponsorship contract with Nike and has featured in several TV ad campaigns for them. His controversial autobiography called ‘I Am Zlatan’, was published in 2012.
7. Wayne Rooney (Manchester United) – £50m
Ever since Wayne Rooney scored his stunning debut goal against Arsenal for Everton when he was just 16 in 2002, the striker has became a football superstar.
Manchester United won the battle for his signature in 2004, paying £25.4 million for the unpredictable attacker’s signature and he has been a focal point of Sir Alex Ferguson’s side since then.
During his time at Old Trafford he has won four Premier League titles, two League Cups and a Champions League.
The United striker earns a weekly wage of £160,000 and commercial partners include Nike and HarperCollins, who paid him a record £5m advance and royalties for a five-book deal. His third book called ‘My Decade in the Premier League’ was published in September 2012.
His image suffered in 2010 following tabloid revelations into his personal life, with sponsors such as Coca Cola dropping him from campaigns.
Married to childhood sweetheart Coleen, a successful columnist in her own right, the couple boast a property portfolio that includes a £4m neo-Georgian mega mansion in Cheshire, a £5m villa on the Royal Westmoreland estate in Barbados, a luxury home in Dubai and a £320,000 apartment in Florida. Rooney also bought a £400,000 home on a private estate in West Derby for his parents.
Rooney has 11 current or previous company director or secretary appointments. His company Stoneygate 48 reported ‘assets’ worth £4.4m as of March 2012.
He also has an interest in Waverton Property Llp with others footballers including Manchester United team-mate Ryan Giggs. The partnership has invested £145m in a project to convert a Birmingham warehouse into a data centre. The latest accounts for the year to 5 April 2012 reported a ‘net worth’ of £74m and ‘assets’ worth £15m.
6. Samuel Eto’o (Anzhi Makhachkala) – £52m
Samuel Eto’o is the most successful African football player of all time having won the African Player of the Year award a record four times. He also just so happens to be the highest paid player in the world, earning a jaw-dropping £365,000 a week.
Eto’o can earn a further £244,000 a year in performance bonuses, while Anzhi also pay the £65,000 a month rent on his luxury mansion in Moscow.
The 31-year-old striker, who won Olympic gold with Cameroon in 2000, has been a major earner since signing for Barcelona for £20 million in 2004. While at the Nou Camp he won three La Liga titles and the Champions League twice, scoring 151 goals in 232 games.
In 2009 he joined Inter Milan as part of deals that saw Maxwell and Ibrahimovic move to Barcelona. Eto’o demanded almost £2.75m from Barcelona for his transfer (15 per cent of the £17.7m transfer fee) as per Spanish rules, before winning Serie A and another Champions League in Italy.
His already considerable earnings are further boosted by lucrative sponsorship deals and partnerships with Puma, Ford and fashion label John Richmond.
He spent £800,000 on designer watches for his international team-mates after qualifying for the 2010 World Cup, but he soon earned that money back as Eto’o’s money-spinning move to Russia was completed in the summer of 2011.
Last year he was forced to deny tax evasion allegations from the Spanish public prosecutor of conspiring to evade £3m in taxes owed on income from his image rights while playing for Barcelona.
He owns properties in Paris, Barcelona, Milan and in Cameroon.
5. Ronaldinho (Atletico Mineiro) – £63m
Ronaldinho is considered by many as one of the most talented players to have ever graced the game and his career highlights certainly make for impressive reading.
The Brazilian is a two-time Fifa World Player of the Year, the 2005 Ballon d’Or winner, a World Cup winner with Brazil and a Champions League winner with Barcelona. His former Barca team-mate Samuel Eto’o fondly refers to him as a genius.
He may have appeared higher up the Top 50 list, but 2012 proved a costly year for the 32-year-old as he was forced to cancel his contract with Flamengo after claiming lack of salary, bonus and image rights payments had left him millions of pounds out of pocket.
Coca Cola dropped his £415,000-a-year sponsorship deal that was due to run until 2014, after he sipped a can of rival drink Pepsi during his unveiling at Atletico Mineiro.
Ronaldinho’s salary tumbled from £100,000-a-week at Flamengo to £24,000-a-week, albeit with the potential to earn a further £244,000-a-year in bonuses. Unusually for a top star in Brazil, Mineiro pays his salary without assistance from commercial partners. His profile remains high and he is in contention for a place in his country’s World Cup squad. His income is topped up by sponsorships with Nike, Lloret del Mar, Danone, EA Sports, Lenovo and Kibon.
At the end of 2012 Blackburn Rovers owners Venky’s persuaded Ronaldinho to sign with their film company to make ‘Ronaldinho versus Aliens’, an animation inspired by Space Jam, which also starred Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny.
Ronaldinho has been earning big money on and off the pitch since winning the 2002 World Cup and his income increased substantially after he swapped PSG for Barcelona the following year following a £25 million transfer. He joined AC Milan in 2008 for £18m on a three-year contract worth £5.1m a year, plus £875,000 a year in bonuses.
He owns property in Brazil, Greece, Barcelona, Lake Como and Florida.
4. Kaka (Real Madrid) – £66.5m
It is hard to comprehend just how far and fast Kaka’s form has fallen since the former Ballon D’Or and Fifa World Player of the Year winner swapped Milan for Real Madrid in 2009.
When the Brazilian superstar joined Real for a £54 million fee in 2009 – the second largest fee ever paid at the time – the stage was set for a glorious new chapter in his career. Instead injuries have continued to plague the attacking midfielder who picks up a salary worth £141,000-a-week, with the possibility of a further £689,000 in bonuses.
Sadly Kaka’s career has nosedived to such an extent that despite being only 30, the attacking midfielder seems likely to move to the MLS when his current contract ends in 2015, after expressing his interest in the US league.
However there are signs that Kaka may rise again. He made a goalscoring return for Brazil last September, ending a two-year exodus, and a player with such a massive profile and clean-cut image will be hoping to be selected for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. He has scored 29 goals in 85 games for his country so far.
Nevertheless he remains one of the world’s most recognisable footballers and is adored in Brazil. Kaka became the first sportsman to amass 10 million Twitter followers last year, while his salary is swelled through sponsorship deals with Adidas, EA Sports, Sony and Brazilian soft drink Guarana. He has also been a model for Armani since 2007.
He owns a Madrid mansion worth £5m in the same neighbourhood as team-mate Cristiano Ronaldo and coach Jose Mourinho, several properties in Brazilian city Natal and as perhaps a clue to his future plans, also owns three luxury apartments in Manhattan, New York.
3. Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) – £112m
Cristiano Ronaldo became the most expensive footballer in history after joining Real Madrid from Manchester United for £80 million in 2009 and the prolific forward has more than justified his substantial price tag since.
He has a phenomenal goalscoring record, with 84 goals in 196 games for Man Utd and is closing in on 200 for Madrid. Last season he was inspirational for los Blancos as they overhauled Barcelona to win their first Liga title in four seasons, and he scored vital goals over the course of the season particularly in the league-deciding win over their rivals at Camp Nou.
Earning £157,000-a-week, Ronaldo became the highest paid player in the world when he swapped Manchester for the Spanish capital. He also has the potential to earn a further £810,000 a year in performance and success related bonuses, while his contract contains a buy-out clause of £830m.
The 28 year-old has since been overtaken in the pay stakes by the likes of Lionel Messi, Samuel Eto’o and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, but would expect improved terms to sign an extended contract to stay at the Bernabeu beyond his current deal, which ends in 2015. Until he puts pen to paper however, a return to Manchester or a move to Paris or Russia cannot be discounted.
During contract negotiations with Real, Ronaldo has revealed he was “sad” at the Liga champions – thought to be connected to the amount his club earns from his lucrative sponsorship deals. He agreed a 60:40 split of all money earned from sponsors when he signed for the club, but he now wants 100 per cent. If successful, he will potentially leapfrog Lionel Messi in the wealth stakes from next year.
Ronaldo picks up an estimated £12m a year in endorsements, ranging from Nike (his current arrangement until 2014 is worth £5m a year) to video game Pro Evolution Soccer, Coca Cola, Armani, Castrol oil, Bugatti, Linic, Clea, Konami and Motorola, not to mention royalties from his 2007 autobiography called Moments. In December 2012 Portuguese bank Banco Espirito Santo revealed it had extended its sponsorship of the player through to 2014.
Ronaldo is the captain of the Portugal national team and one of the most popular athletes on the planet – he passed 51m fans on Facebook in late 2012.
The Madeira-born star owns the CR7 fashion boutique with his sisters. Stores in Lisbon, Vilamoura (Algarve) and Luxembourg were unsuccessful and have shut down, however a store in Funchal (Madeira) remains.
His collection of supercars includes a matt black Lamborghini Aventador worth £180,000 and a Bugatti Veyron worth £1m. He owns a Madrid mansion worth £4.5m, a villa and flat in Lisbon, a property in his native Madeira and an £8m luxury hotel on the Portuguese island of Porto Santo. He is also said to have invested in property in Turkey in partnership with a property developer called Demiroren.
2. Lionel Messi (Barcelona) – £115.5m
The four time Ballon d’Or winner who scored a record 91 goals in 2012 is not used to coming second, but he has a little way to go before his earnings and endorsements ensure his overall wealth is the biggest in football.
But the tricky Argentine certainly has time on his side. At just 25 years old, the diminutive Messi should only now be reaching the peak of his powers.
Without seemingly reaching his prime, Messi has already won five La Liga titles, three Champions Leagues, two Club World Cups, two Copa del Reys and an Olympic Gold medal.
As well as a record goal haul in 2012, the year ended with him signing a new and improved contract with Barcelona which has seen his pay rise from £172,000 a week to £251,000 a week, plus bonuses. He is understood to potentially collect a further £1.5million a year from success related bonuses – bonuses he has been used to collecting on a regular basis over the years.
The Argentine’s asset portfolio includes several properties in his hometown of Rosario in Argentina including the house he grew up in, an exclusive apartment, a luxury mansion and a compound for his family. He also owns a luxury mansion in Barcelona. His range of cars extends to an Audi R8 worth £100,000 and a Ferrari F430 Spider worth a cool £135,000.
He has a range of extremely lucrative sponsorship deals with a long-term relationship with the likes of Adidas (worth £2m a year) and Herbalife. In 2012, Messi signed new multi-million pound sponsorship deal to be the global ambassador for Turkish Airlines as well as a deal with Proctor & Gamble. He also shot a TV commercial for Japanese face wash Scalp-D that has subsequently gone viral.
Other endorsements include a long-term deal to be a global ambassador for EA Sports, as well as Pepsi, Audemars Piguet and Dolce & Gabanna.
1. David Beckham (PSG) – £175m
David Beckham has come to personify an era where footballers have become more than just popular athletes but global, marketable assets who comfortably straddle the worlds of sport and show business.
The London-born midfielder has appeared for Manchester United, Real Madrid, Milan, LA Galaxy, Paris Saint-Germain and England in a hugely-successful playing career that has seen him win league titles in three different countries. He is hoping to add a Ligue1 winners’ medal to his trophy cabinet having recently joined Carlo Ancelotti’s PSG on a short-term contract.
The vast wealth he has managed to accumulate and continues to bring in is testament to his continued appeal, because while Beckham’s retirement from the game edges ever closer, the phenomenal earning power of the 37-year-old former England skipper shows no signs of slowing down.
Britain’s richest sportsman is also the world’s wealthiest footballer. Beckham commanded an estimated £20 million from his off-field commercial activities in 2012, an increase over 2011 – an amazing achievement for a player at the latter stages of his career. Last year he earned income from sponsorship deals and endorsements with the likes of Adidas, H&M and Diet Pepsi in what proved to be his most lucrative year to date.
His involvement in the 2012 Olympic Games last year generated additional commercial interest from the likes of Samsung and Sainsbury’s.
Beckham has eight current or previous company director or secretary appointments. He is paid for certain sponsorship deals through his company Footwork Productions, which manages his work and image rights. In 2011, the company earned £15.2m of which Beckham paid himself £13.3m.
Beckham’s company Footwork Productions is a shop front for his image rights and sponsorship deals. The company has paid him nearly £75m in salary and dividends from 2002 to 2009. The latest annual accounts for the year up to 31 December 2011 reported ‘assets’ worth £10.6m.
The latest annual accounts submitted to Companies House for Beckham Ventures Ltd for the year up to 31 December 2011, reported ‘assets’ worth £4.7m. The company is shared between Beckham, his wife Victoria, 37, a former Spice Girl and a successful fashion designer, and also their manager Simon Fuller.
Another company is Beckham Brand Ltd. As of 31 December 2011, the company reported ‘assets’ worth £5.4m.
He continues to receive £7m a year from Adidas while the midfielder has built up his fortune through lucrative sponsorship deals, which have also included EA Sports and Yahoo, not to mention income from book deals. He has raked in millions from his autobiographies ‘David Beckham: My World’, which was published in 2001 and ‘David Beckham: My Side’, published in 2003.
In 2007, he was reportedly paid £8.5m to launch his fragrance line in the US.
Several years earlier, he moved to Real Madrid for £25m on a four-year contract worth £6m a year from Manchester United after spending 10 years at the Premier League side where he became a global superstar. He helped Real to the 2007 Liga title before joining LA Galaxy.
During his time at the Galaxy, Beckham enjoyed two short loan spells with AC Milan before eventually leaving the MLS club having won the MLS Cup in 2011 and 2012.
He left the Galaxy when hs contract expired at the end of 2012 and in January agreed a five-month deal with PSG until the end of the season. However, the midfielder has agreed to donate all of his PSG salary to a local children’s charity.
Beckham will not earn a penny from PSG after agreeing to waive image rights and any share in merchandising profits, shirt sales, sponsorships or any other club income during his stay at the Ligue 1 big-spenders.
However, he looks set to continue his ambassadorial roles. After successfully representing Great Britain at the London Olympics he has accepted an invitation to become the first global ambassador for Chinese football.
Text courtesy of Goal.com.