No Messi as Ronaldo, Mbappe and Haaland headline football’s highest earners list | OneFootball

Cristiano Ronaldo, Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappe are all among the top 10 highest-paid footballers, but there’s no place for Lionel Messi, Neymar or Mohamed Salah.

This ranking only considers weekly wages, meaning Messi’s astronomical bonuses are ignored. When those bonuses are included, he jumps up to second place.

Lionel Messi not among top ten highest-paid footballers

Incredibly, Messi doesn’t even have the highest weekly wage in Major League Soccer. Instead, it’s Tottenham Hotspur legend Heung-min Son, who earns over £180,000 a week at Los Angeles FC. Messi, meanwhile, takes home a measly £170,000 a week.

We weren’t sure how he survived before discovering how much he makes when all of his bonuses and endorsements are included.

According to Forbes, Messi earns more off the pitch ($75million per year) than he does on it ($60million per year), and when everything is taken into account, he earns over £390,000 a day, over double his weekly salary in his Inter Miami contract.

The 38-year-old Barcelona legend recently penned a new three-year contract to keep him at Inter until the end of the 2028 MLS season, but his deal is nowhere near as lucrative as several Saudi Pro League players, including former Real Madrid foes Ronaldo and Karim Benzema.

In fact, 40 Premier League players have a higher weekly wage than Messi, including Wesley Fofana, Rayan Cherki and Harry Maguire.

But the only Premier League representative in the top 10 weekly salaries in the world is Man City star Haaland.

Who is the highest-earning male footballer in the world?

Not Mohamed Salah. Not Casemiro. Not Virgil van Dijk. None of those are even in the top 10, but seven Saudi Pro League stars are.

Salah ended speculation about his Liverpool future by penning a new contract in April. His new deal is worth £400k a week, which sees him narrowly miss out here.

As already mentioned, only weekly wages are considered. Here are the top-earning male footballers in the world.

=10) N’Golo Kante (£414,509 p/w) – The Chelsea legend has won everything in the game and is one of those benefiting from the Saudi Arabian riches who fully deserves to.

=10) Harry Kane (£414,509 p/w) – The only Bundesliga representative in the top 10, England captain Kane was convinced to leave Tottenham Hotspur for Bayern in 2023. Not for the money, but for the trophies.

=8) Ivan Toney (£422,965 p/w) – The highest-paid English footballer, Toney is earning a fortune after leaving Brentford in the 2024 summer transfer window. He wanted Arsenal or Real Madrid and ended up in Saudi Arabia.

=8) Sergej Milinkovic-Savic (£422,965 p/w) – In a list dominated by players in the Middle East, perennial Manchester United target Milinkovic-Savic earns the same as Toney.

7) Kylian Mbappe (£518,137 p/w) – Mbappe is Real Madrid’s highest earner and reportedly brings in another £600k per week in bonuses. Running down your contract is the modern footballer’s power move — no transfer fee, just a bumper salary and signing-on bonus. Mbappe played it perfectly last summer.

6) Erling Haaland (£525,000 p/w) – The Nordic robot has the most lucrative contract in the Premier League. In January 2025, Manchester City confirmed an outrageous nine-year contract extension for Haaland, lasting 115 months. Very clever, lads.

5) Kalidou Koulibaly (£575,339 p/w) – This ranking is not reflective of player ability. Kalidou Koulibaly is not the fifth-best player in world football. In fact, he doesn’t come remotely close. Saudi Arabia bailed Chelsea out by taking him off their hands in 2023 after one rubbish year at Stamford Bridge.

4) Sadio Mane (£663,215 p/w) – The Saudi Pro League took the world by storm in the 2023 summer window and Koulibaly’s Senegal team-mate Mane was one of the biggest names to head east. The Liverpool icon is raking it in; only three footballers earn more than him.

3) Karim Benzema (£829,019k p/w) – In a huge statement of intent, Al Ittihad brought the Ballon d’Or holder and Real Madrid captain to Saudi Arabia. It doesn’t get much bigger than that. All it took was £1.6million a week (including bonuses).

2) Riyad Mahrez (£865,495 p/w) – Leicester City title hero Mahrez had done it all in England and rode off into the Saudi sunset having completed it, mate.

1) Cristiano Ronaldo (£3.45m p/w) – Ahead by a country mile and then some, Cristiano Ronaldo is the highest-earning footballer in the world. In June, he agreed fresh terms to stay at Al Nassr for another two years, when he’ll be 42.

The Real Madrid and Manchester United legend is still banging them in while entertaining those of us who refuse to watch the Saudi Pro League with some gloriously childish antics