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Football has become a commercialised sport today. As per a study carried out in 2017, the average weekly wages of a footballer in the Premier League is £50,000. While that is still a huge amount of money for the average person, it is minuscule compared to the insane amounts that the best footballers earn.
With the humongous TV deals in England, an average Premier League player earns more than double (£2.6 million) of that earned by a Bundesliga player (£1.26 million) annually. Players in the Spanish league (£1.68 million) and the Italian league (£1.33 million) are not far behind in that aspect.
Therefore, we take a look at the 5 footballers who enjoy the highest weekly wages in the world right now:
All stats have been procured courtesy of www.sillyseason.com
#3 Oscar and Alexis Sanchez (£400,000)
No. 3 on our list of players with highest weekly wages in football are Oscar and Alexis Sanchez. Oscar joined Shanghai SIPG from Chelsea in January 2017 in a £60 million move that shocked the whole world.
The Brazilian was an extremely talented player and had played 203 games for Chelsea, scoring 38 goals in the process. He was a part of 2 Premier League-winning teams, one League Cup and one UEFA Europa League during his time at Stamford Bridge.
He was just 25 years old, part of a talented Brazil team but the transfer to the Chinese League was considered a step downwards for such a gifted footballer.
However, the move to the Chinese Club saw him get a huge salary hike and almost one and a half years on, Oscar is still among the highest weekly wage earning footballers in the world right now. According to Sillyseason, Oscar's weekly wages at Shanghai SIPG is £400,000 and it sees him earn more than all of his ex-colleagues at Chelsea.
Alexis Sanchez joined Manchester United from Arsenal in the winter transfer window of 2018, in a swap deal involving Henrikh Mkhitaryan.
Sanchez had joined Arsenal from Barcelona in 2014 and had played 166 matches for the Gunners, scoring 80 goals. He had won 2 FA Cups at the Emirates during his stay with the gunnars.
With a year remaining on his contract, Manchester City were apparently interested in signing the Chilean, but it was United won the race in the end and brought him to Old Trafford. There were a lot of speculations regarding his weekly wages ever since his rumoured move and it was later confirmed that Manchester United had made the Chilean their highest-paid footballer.
SIlly Season reports that Alexis Sanchez's weekly wages at Manchester United is also an astonishing £400,000. That is far more than Paul Pogba or David De Gea, the two star men of the team. In addition, Sanchez is also entitled to a bonus of £75,000 for every first-team start and will also enjoy a £1.1 million annual signing-on fee.
Also Read: Weekly wages and salary of Manchester United stars revealed
#2 Neymar (£453,000)
No. 2 on our list players with highest weekly wages in football is Neymar. He joined Paris Saint-Germain from Barcelona for a world record fee of £200 million, in the summer of 2017. He had played 186 games for Barcelona over 4 seasons, scoring 105 goals, but finally decided that he wanted to move out of Lionel Messi's shadow and create a legacy of his own.
Since joining PSG, Neymar has played 34 games for the Ligue 1 side and has scored 31 times. Along with his record-breaking transfer fee, Neymar's salary at the French side is also one of the highest in the world. According to Sillyseason, Neymar's weekly wages at PSG is an epic €500,000, which converts to £453,000.
However, even after earning such a huge salary, he could not put himself on top of this list.
#1 Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo (£500,000)
At the top of our list of players with highest weekly wages in football are Cristiano Ronaldo & Lionel Messi. Fittingly, it had to be Messi and Ronaldo at the top of this list. While the two of them have been competing with each other at all levels of the football game, it seems that they are at a truce in terms of their weekly earnings as well.
Ronaldo joined Juventus from Real Madrid this summer, for a fee of approximately £105m. At Real Madrid, he had spent 9 seasons, creating and breaking records at will.
He played 438 games in total for the Spanish giants and scored an impressive 450 goals. Even though his transfer fee was not enough to shatter the World Record again, it saw him take a significant pay hike and made him the footballer with the joint highest weekly wages in the world.
According to Sillyseason, Ronaldo now earns a mammoth £500,000 per week at Juventus.
Lionel Messi has spent his entire senior career at Barcelona thus far. This is his 15th season at Nou Camp, an unbelievable record in the modern football.
Since his debut, he has played 638 times for Barcelona and has scored a staggering 554 goals. He has created uncountable records himself and seems to be breaking new records every other day.
At the Nou Camp, he has broken almost every possible attacking record. He has taken Barcelona to new heights and the Catalan Club rewarded him with an improved contract last season, which saw his earnings significantly improved. According to Sillyseason, Messi's weekly wages at Barcelona stands at a colossal £500,000.
£500,000 is definitely a lot of money, but then, the players it is being spent on are certainly priceless.
