Football League World
·21 September 2024
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·21 September 2024
We looked at how much Sheffield Wednesday captain Barry Bannan is estimated to earn per week.
Sheffield Wednesday will be hoping for a much-improved campaign in the Championship this season.
Wednesday looked destined to make an immediate return to League One last season, but they secured safety following a remarkable turnaround under Danny Rohl, and there is plenty of optimism that they can climb the table in the year ahead.
It was a busy summer at Hillsborough with 11 new signings arriving, including the likes of James Beadle, Yan Valery, Max Lowe, Shea Charles, Jamal Lowe and Ike Ugbo, while a number of the club's key players signed new contracts.
Among those to commit their future to the Owls was long-serving captain Barry Bannan, who joined the club on a free transfer from Crystal Palace in August 2015.
Bannan has established himself as something of a club legend over the last nine years, and while he is now 34 years of age, he is still as influential as ever for Wednesday.
The midfielder has had opportunities to leave the club, with Brentford reportedly making an offer for him in the summer of 2020, but he has remained loyal to the Owls, and after they were relegated in 2021, he achieved his objective of leading them back to the Championship.
Bannan claimed in May that he is hoping to stay with Wednesday for the rest of his career, and he signed a new deal this summer to keep him in South Yorkshire for at least another year.
As Bannan begins his tenth season in an Owls shirt, we looked at how much the Scotsman is currently earning per week.
According to Capology, Bannan earns £24,038 per week and £1,250,000 per year at Wednesday, although it should be stressed that those figures are an estimate.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given his importance to the team and the fact he is the Owls' captain, he is the highest paid player at the club, with Dominic Iorfa, Yan Valery, Nathaniel Chalobah and Ike Ugbo joint-second on the list at £20,000 per week.
Jamal Lowe and Callum Paterson (both £18,000 per week), Michael Smith (£17,500 per week), Max Lowe (£17,000 per week), Michael Ihiekwe (£15,192 per week) and Josh Windass (£15,000 per week) are also among Wednesday's top earners, but they all take home significantly less than Bannan.
Bannan may earn more than all of his team-mates, but the midfielder previously revealed that his wages halved when the Owls were relegated to League One in 2021, and he insisted that money is not a factor in his career decisions.
"I’ll just clear it up. When we got relegated my money halved from what it was. A lot of people think that my money never dropped but I signed a contract in the January when we were close to relegation in the Championship knowing that there was a chance that we could go down and my money could half," Bannan told Yorkshire Live in October 2022.
"I’m not in the game in game for money, obviously money is an added bonus, I’m in the game because I love playing here and love playing in front of big crowds.
"Just to get it out there, my money halved when we got relegated so I could’ve got more wages if I left to the Championship or the [interested] team that were in the Premier League.
"They were clubs that probably a lot of players would’ve gone to but like I said, people are in football for different reasons and I’m in it for the love of playing week in week out."
Wednesday supporters would certainly agree that Bannan has proven his commitment since his arrival nine years ago, and few would take issue with his status as the club's highest-paid player.
Bannan may be coming towards the latter part of his career, but there is no doubt that he still has plenty to offer on the pitch, and he will be hoping to write more chapters in his incredible story at Hillsborough over the coming years.