🤑 Wages too high? CIES offers the solution and salaries tumble 🔻 | OneFootball

Among the ever-relevant topics in the world of football is that of players’ salaries. Most of the time, they are exorbitant, and far too excessive when you consider how much they have increased compared to a couple of decades ago.

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The CIES has tried to determine how much the best footballers in the world should earn, presenting a statistical model that takes into account sporting variables such as position, playing time, competition level, and starting appearances.

So, what are the ideal salaries for footballers according to this algorithm?

👑 The Podium: Mbappé, Salah and…

At the top of this special ranking is Kylian Mbappé, who, according to these parameters, should earn €22.8 million gross, about 40% of the amount he actually receives.

Behind him are Mohamed Salah of Liverpool and Jude Bellingham, his teammate at Real Madrid.

More forwards than anyone else

According to the CIES study, the model favors forwards: strikers and wingers make up the majority at the top of the ranking.

The only goalkeeper to appear in the ranking is Thibaut Courtois of Real Madrid.

🔝 The Top 10

Among the top ten in the CIES ranking, there is only one player who plays in Serie A: Inter’s captain, Lautaro Martinez.

🇮🇹 Serie A

In this special ranking, there are 14 Serie A players among the top 100:

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇮🇹 here.

📸 Marco Luzzani - 2025 Getty Images