The 50 Highest Paid Footballers in the World

February 28th, 2008 | by: Daryl |

top 50 earners Over on The Offside, we recently posted a list of the 50 highest paid footballers in the world as published by a Portuguese financial site. The figures (below) are based purely on salary, so don’t include endorsements and the like.

Some of the names on there will make you laugh (cough, Darren Bent) and some of the absentees will make you wonder (no Leo Messi for example.) No surprise that the Premier League and La Liga are the big spenders, with Chelsea, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Manchester United paying the wages of over half of these 50 players.

The list is below, and then afterwards we’ve broken it down by nationality.

1. Ricardo Kaka (AC Milan) 9.000.000 €
2. Ronaldinho Gaucho (FC Barcelona) 8.520.000 €
3. Frank Lampard (Chelsea FC) 8.160.000 €
4. John Terry (Chelsea FC) 8.160.000 €
5. Fernando Torres (Liverpool FC) 7.920.000 €
6. Andriy Shevchenko (Chelsea FC) 7.800.000 €
7. Michael Ballack (Chelsea FC) 7.800.000 €
8. Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester Utd) 7.680.000 €
9. Thierry Henry (FC Barcelona) 7.680.000 €
10. Steven Gerrard (Liverpool FC) 7.680.000 €
11. Didier Drogba (Chelsea FC) 7.380.000 €
12. Wayne Rooney (Manchester Utd) 7.320.000 €
13. Iker Casillas (CF Real Madrid) 7.200.000 €
14. Michael Owen (Newcastle Utd) 6.720.000 €
15. Sol Campbell (Portsmouth) 6.600.000 €
16. Raul Gonzalez (CF Real Madrid) 6.420.000 €
17. Ruud Van Nistelrooy (CF Real Madrid) 6.420.000 €
18. Rio Ferdinand (Manchester Utd) 6.060.000 €
19. Darren Bent (Tottenham Hotspur) 5.940.000 €
20. Carlos Tevez (Manchester Utd) 5.880.000 €
21. Fabio Cannavaro (CF Real Madrid) 5.880.000 €
22. Luca Toni (Bayern Munich) 5.520.000 €
23. Robinho (CF Real Madrid) 5.520.000 €
24. Francesco Totti (AS Roma) 5.460.000 €
25. Arjen Robben (CF Real Madrid) 5.340.000
26. Ryan Giggs (Manchester Utd) 5.220.000 €
27. Michael Essien (Chelsea FC) 5.040.000 €
28. Adriano (Internazionale) 5.004.000 €
29. Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Internazionale) 5.004.000 €
30. Patrick Vieira (Internazionale) 5.004.000 €
31. Gianluigi Buffon (Juventus FC) 5.004.000 €
32. Samuel Eto’o (FC Barcelona) 5.004.000 €
33. Carles Puyol (FC Barcelona) 5.004.000 €
34. Sergio Aguero (Atletico Madrid) 5.004.000 €
35. Oliver Kahn (Bayern Munich) 4.944.000 €
36. Edwin Van der Sar (Manchester Utd) 4.860.000 €
37. Fernando Morientes (Valência) 4.860.000 €
38. Alessandro Del Piero (Juventus FC) 4.800.000 €
39. Harry Kewell (Liverpool FC) 4.800.000 €
40. Djibril Cisse (O.Marseille) 4.800.000 €
41. Joe Cole (Chelsea FC) 4.680.000 €
42. Pedro Pauleta (Paris SG) 4.608.000 €
43. Juninho Pernanbucano (O.Lyon) 4.560.000 €
44. David Beckham (LA Galaxy) 4.500.000 €
45. David Trezeguet (Juventus FC) 4.500.000 €
46. Sidney Govou (O.Lyon) 4.500.000 €
47. Deco (FC Barcelona) 4.500.000 €
48. Gianluca Zambrotta (FC Barcelona) 4.500.000 €
49. Petr Cech (Chelsea FC) 4.320.000 €
50. Antonio Cassano (Sampdoria) 4.200.000 €

Here it is broken down by nationality:

England – 10 players
Italy – 7 players
Brazil, Spain, France – 5 players
Portugal, Netherlands – 3 players
Germany, Argentina – 2 players
Ukraine, Cote d’Ivoire, Wales, Ghana, Sweden, Cameroon, Australia, Czech Republic – 1 player each

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John

How does Darren Bent make more money than Leo Messi? That doesn’t make sense now, r u sure this list is for real?
shahz

Bull shit list, can you stop making stuff up.
You got the Italian players from Gazetta’s list?? Well the numbers that were included were their income after taxes, you are cofusing the whole thing.
http://www.worldcupblog.org Daryl

It’s from the Portuguese finance site, second link into the post.

As for Leo Messi, just because he’s not in the top 50 doesn’t mean he’s going hungry. Think we can assume that when he signs a new contract it will be big.
habib

what about leo messi?he is greater than most other players in the list.
Raul

How do they spend this money? It’s very interestin’
http://ManUTD.com Yinka Leo Ogundiran

Woooooooooooooooooow! Why the heck did I give up football because of Engineering???:-D Damn! I could easily have been on this list because I was – and still – far better than Frank Lampard!:-)
treerstr

yinka you are a fool and an asshole to think with your two left feet you come even close to lampards fart..you moron….im sure you are a stupid engineer too…bitch.
treerstr

stupid ,brain dead dreamer is what you are you wanker…