German Bundesliga: Marco Reus of Borussia Dortmund – approximately £120,000 a week
Two big surprises here. Firstly, despite being recognised as one of the best three leagues in the world right now, Germany’s Bundesliga does not really pay wages in line with that – Reus, their highest paid player with approximately £120k a week, makes less than half of what Paul Pogba does and less than a third of Cristiano Ronaldo’s monstrous wage.
Secondly, you’d expect Germany’s highest paid player to come from their biggest club, Bayern Munich, who have tended to dominate the Bundesliga over the past few years. Instead, Reus is at Borussia Dortmund, and despite the rest of Germany’s top players largely gravitating to Munich, he’s stayed there since his move from Borussia Monchengladbach in January 2012 – most recently signing a contract extension in 2015 to keep him there until 2019.
Naturally, Bayern players make up the majority of the rest of Germany’s top ten highest paid, but even their best – Robert Lewandowski, Franck Ribery, Philipp Lahm and Arjen Robben and Manuel Neuer – only make approximately £120k a week. With clubs from England, Spain and even Italy and France paying much higher wages, it’s a surprise that German clubs manage to hold onto their top players as well as they do.
