Top 10 Highest Paid Footballers in the World

#6 Gareth Bale (Real Madrid) - €2,500,000/Month

Real Madrid v Ajax - UEFA Champions League Round of 16: Second Leg

Gareth Bale is a 29-year-old right winger who currently plays for Real Madrid in La Liga. He has represented Wales' national team on 74 occasions, since making his debut back in May 2006.

A product of Southampton's youth academy, Bale was sold to Spurs within a year of being promoted to the Saints' first team. Tottenham didn't waste any time in bringing in the 18-year-old, as they recognised his potential to be a great deal higher than his peers.

They paid an outright fee of around £13.5m for Bale, which raised a few eyebrows from the Spurs fans who thought it was strange to be paying such a large chunk of money for an unproven teenager, but, sure enough, they would reap the rewards later on.

Bale would spend six years with Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League, progressing from playing as a left-back, to a left midfielder, then a left winger, before eventually being tried out as a striker. In all positions, he was lethal; he could do no wrong.

So when the opportunity arose in the summer of 2013, Real Madrid broke the bank and signed Bale for a mighty £90m. Bale was only valued at around £60m at the time, but Los Blancos didn't want to risk competing with other clubs for his signature so they went all-out.

Nowadays, Bale is easily one of the best players in the world. He consistently puts in superb performances for Real Madrid and even gave Ronaldo a run for his money when the two shared the pitch. Now that Ronaldo is with Juventus, Bale has Madrid to himself.

Madrid have renewed Bale's contract a couple of times since he first signed, hiking up his price tag exponentially to ward off other clubs. His weekly salary is now in the region of €625,000-per-week.