Professional football is a lucrative business in 2023 and the 10 highest-paid players on the planet – who play for clubs like Chelsea, Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain and Liverpool – are raking in huge sums both in wages and sponsorship deals.
Footballers’ salaries at the very top end of the game have risen exponentially in recent years, especially following the entrance onto the scene of huge multinationals, oligarchs and oil states as club owners.
Players have also benefitted from the popularity of the game to sign significant endorsement deals, which in a few cases can earn them almost as much as their salary.
Here, we look at the top 10 highest-earning football stars on the planet in 2023, with figures from Sportico’s Kurt Badenhausen*, an expert in professional sportspeople’s earnings.
Note: in line with the Sportico figures, we use US Dollars as the currency and transfers that took place in January 2023 have been fact-checked with other sources.
10. Antoine Griezmann – $27.5m ($22m salary, $5.5m endorsements)
The Frenchman started the 2022-23 campaign somewhat in Limbo, struggling for minutes at Atletico Madrid due to bizarre contract clauses in his loan contract from his parent club.
That’s since all been sorted out, with a deal to rejoin Atleti on a permanent deal signed and sealed, and since then he’s underlined why he’s one of the top-paid footballers in world football.
Griezmann was outstanding for Les Bleus as they finished runners-up in Qatar and has kept up that form for his club, who have put their poor start behind them and now look set to comfortably finish in La Liga’s top four once again. There’s an argument he’s been the best player in Spain in 2022-23.
9. Kevin De Bruyne – $29m ($25.5m salary, $3.5m endorsements)
De Bruyne has almost certainly been the best player in the world’s most lucrative league over the last five seasons and plays for a club owned by the Abu Dhabi Royal Family, so it’d be weird if he wasn’t in this top 10.
.@KevinDeBruyne 🤝 @BernardoCSilva #ManCity pic.twitter.com/ZfUyN5NvcC
— Manchester City (@ManCity) August 21, 2022
8. Raheem Sterling – $29.4m ($21.4m salary, $8m endorsements)
While Sterling wasn’t earning as much as De Bruyne at Man City and still isn’t at his new club Chelsea, his marketability puts him above the Belgian here.
Sterling has big deals with New Balance for his boots and with Apple for all of his technological needs, while anyone who’s reading this in the UK will definitely have seen the England international standing in a neon green tunnel and encouraging them to have a shave in the half-time ad break at some point.
7. Andres Iniesta – $30m ($23m, $7m endorsements)
This one shocked us a bit. But the little man is big in Japan.
Former Barcelona star Iniesta has been playing for Vissel Jobe since 2018 and signed a new contract in 2021 that will keep him at the club until 2023. Given the salary on offer, it’s not that surprising he decided to stay.
Iniesta also has sponsorship deals with big-name Japanese brands like Nissan, Asics and Konami as well as GeneLife, which is, according to their website, a company that is “focused in providing you your personal genetic information allowing you to make better health and lifestyle choices for prevention of disease.”
Sounds a bit Black Mirror if you ask us.
Anyway, Iniesta’s immediate focus will not be on advertising this array of products but on keeping his team in the J1 League. At the time of writing, Vissel Kobe are one point clear of the relegation zone with five games to play.
6. Eden Hazard – $31.1m ($28.6m salary, $2.5m endorsements)
It really, really has not gone to plan for Hazard at Real Madrid. Since his £103million move to the Spanish capital, the Belgian has scored just seven goals in three and a bit seasons. Watching last season’s Champions League final from the bench must have been particularly galling.
Like they were with Gareth Bale, Madrid are stuck paying a huge salary to a player who doesn’t feature all that regularly. They can only blame themselves, though.
READ: The six players Real Madrid signed alongside Hazard & how they fared
5. Mohamed Salah – $39.5m ($24.5m salary, $15m endorsements)
Salah’s status as one of the most clinical forwards on the planet finally translated itself into cold, hard cash when he signed a new, three-year, £350,000-a-week Liverpool contract in August 2022.
Owing to his megastar status in Egypt and the MENA region more generally, Salah also attracts very significant sponsorship deals with the likes of Adidas, Pepsi, Vodafone and Uber.
After a bit of a drop-off in form at the end of last season, his manager Jurgen Klopp predicted that the Egyptian king would be back firing on all cylinders in 2022-23.
That’s not quite happened. But we wouldn’t rule out a Salah renaissance at some point. And with 23 goals and 10 assists in all competitions, even an on-form Salah is still a pretty handy player.
4. Neymar – $91m ($56m salary, $35m endorsements)
Now we’re into the real big leagues – the four players whose earnings set them miles apart from the rest of football and put them among the richest athletes in the world in any sport.
Neymar is first up and is on the third-highest salary in world football – which also happens to be the third-highest salary at his club PSG.
Like so many footballers, the Brazilian has dived head-first into the incomprehensible whirlpool of NFTs and crypto, releasing a ‘digital collection’ with NFTSTAR, whoever the hell they are.
He also splashed over $1million worth of crypto on two Bored Ape NFTs in one day in January 2022. That’s a lot of crypto.
3. Lionel Messi – $110m ($62m salary, $48m endorsements)
He’s topped the list of highest-paid players at times, but Messi has now dropped down to third.
Still, with endorsement deals for watches, fizzy pop, telecoms, sportswear, sports drinks, beer, video games, an oil state and crisps – and with his recently acquired status as world champion – we shouldn’t think he’ll be down the Job Centre anytime soon.
2. Kylian Mbappe – $125m ($105m, $20m endorsements)
Mbappe recently revealed to the New York Times that French President Emmanuel Macron personally got on the blower to convince him not to leave PSG for Real Madrid this summer.
Mbappe said: “He told me: ‘I don’t want you to leave now. You are so important for the country.’ Of course, when the president says that to you, that counts.”
We imagine the fact that PSG whacked a $105million-a-year contract on the table also counted.
1. Cristiano Ronaldo – $208.6m ($74.6m salary, $133.84m endorsements)
Yeah, this is ridiculous. Still, both Ronaldo and Al Nassr seem happy enough with this arrangement.
All four of Ronaldo’s goals for Al Nassr today 🤩 pic.twitter.com/xqSgJ8XTSj
— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) February 9, 2023
*You can see the Sportico article here.
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