How much Michail Antonio was earning at West Ham as Charlton Athletic talks surface | OneFootball

Could Antonio return to the EFL for the first time since 2015?

For nearly a decade, Michail Antonio graced the Premier League for West Ham United, and in that time he was somewhat underrated, yet adored by fans of the east London outfit.

The Hammers didn't sign Antonio as a centre-forward when he arrived in 2015 from Nottingham Forest - he spent his early years as a winger and also filled in at right-back for the Hammers, and it was only in the 2019-20 campaign where he fully converted into a striker.

There were even calls at times for Antonio to be capped for England, having been called up to squads in 2016 and 2017, but after not playing in those periods, he opted to switch his allegiances to Jamaica in 2021, where he's played 24 times since.

After 268 Premier League matches and 68 goals though, Antonio finds himself still a free agent, with his West Ham contract ending last summer.

A car crash in December 2024 - which saw Antonio suffer a lower limb fracture - ended the forward's final season at the London Stadium prematurely, although he made a quicker than anticipated recovery to play for Jamaica in the CONCACAF Gold Cup in three substitute appearances in June.

Since then though, his only matches have been as part of West Ham's under-21's squad in August as an overage player, and with a stint training at Leicester City not materialising into a contract offer due to an injury, it has left another Championship club in the clear to make a move for the 35-year-old.

As per the BBC, Charlton Athletic have entered initial talks with the versatile attacker in a bid to try and sign him as a free agent, presumably for the remainder of the 2025-26 season, as Nathan Jones looks to add a bit more experience to his squad in a bid to stave off the threat of relegation back to League One.

How much was Michail Antonio earning at West Ham?

If Antonio is going to land at The Valley though, he's going to be on nothing like the wages he was on in his heydey at Upton Park and the London Stadium.

As per estimates made by Capology, Antonio's starting wage at West Ham in 2015 was around the £25,000-per week mark when he made his £7 million move from the Tricky Trees to the Hammers.

That was said to have risen though after his strong performances and a new contract ahead of the 2017-18 season, with the new estimates claiming that Antonio was then on £70,000 a week at West Ham.

Antonio landed another new deal in December 2020, and fresh estimates put his weekly earnings at that time around the £85,000 mark, which would remain until the end of his time at the club in 2025.

Michail Antonio will have to earn a lot less at Charlton Athletic than his West Ham days

Antonio made a fair amount of money as a West Ham player, and if Capology's estimates are accurate, then before tax he would have brought home around £34.84 million during his 10-year stay.

That is a sensational amount, and you can understand why Antonio was on big bucks even in the last few years of his time at the club, given he hit double figures in the Premier League as recent as the 2021-22 campaign.

Naturally though, as a 35-year-old free agent who hasn't played club football in well over a year now, Antonio's demands are going to have to drop massively from what he was on during his time as a Premier League player.

Capology have Charlton's highest estimated permanent earner being Belgian goalkeeper Thomas Kaminski on around £20,000-per week, with January signing Lyndon Dykes next on a £15,000 weekly wage - you'd imagine though that given his time out of the game, Antonio would only be able to command something in the £10,000 a week range if a deal is going to be done between all parties, as he potentially looks to prove he's still got something to offer at Championship level.