It's been common knowledge for a while that footballers earn a shit ton of money. The average weekly wage for a Premier League player exceeded £50,000 towards the end of last year. That's an average wage of over £2.5 million a year.
Compare that with the £27,200 average yearly salary for us common folk, it means a Premier League footballer almost doubles our yearly wage in a week.
But what about the best players in the world?
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Ronaldo, Messi, Suarez, Pogba. Who took home the most dollar in 2017? Here's the list of the top 20 earning footballers of the past 12 months, courtesy of Forbes.
1. Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) - £68.8 million (£42.9 million salary and bonus)
Image: PA
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2. Lionel Messi (FC Barcelona) - £59.2 million (£39.2 million salary and bonus)
3. Neymar (Paris St Germain) - £27 million (£11 million salary and bonus)
4. Gareth Bale (Real Madrid) - £25.1 million (£17 million salary and bonus)
5. Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Man Utd) - £23.7 million (£20 million salary and bonus)
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Image: PA
6. Wayne Rooney (Man Utd) - £17.5 million (£13 million salary and bonus)
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7. Luis Suarez (Barcelona) - £17.2 million ( £13 million salary and bonus)
8. Sergio Aguero (Man City) - £16.7 million (£10.8 million salary and bonus)
9. James Rodriguez (FC Bayern Munich) - £16 million (£10.4 million salary and bonus)
10. Paul Pogba (Man Utd) - £15.7 million (£12.8 million salary and bonus)
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11. Angela Di Maria (Paris St Germain) - £15.2 million (£13 million salary and bonus)
12. Hulk (Shanghai SIPG) - £14.9 million (£14.1 million salary and bonus)
13. Thiago Silva (Paris St Germain) - £14.8 million (£13.3 million)
14. Eden Hazard (Chelsea FC) - £14 million (£11 million)
Image: PA
15. Graziano Pelle (Shandong Lueng Taishan FC) - £13.3 million (£12.7 million )
16. Yaya Toure (Man City) -£13.4 million (£11.2 million)
17. Cesc Fabregas (Chelsea) - £13.3 million (£9.6 million)
18. Robin Van Persie (Fenerbahce S.K) - £13.2 million (£11.7 million)
19. Gerard Pique (FC Barcelona) - £13 million (£10.4 million)
20. Mesut Ozil (Arsenal) - £13 million (£7.8 million)
Image: PA
Just to put Ronaldo's pay into perspective, it would take someone on the average annual wage in the UK over 1,400 years to earn his 2017 wage, that means it takes him seven minutes to earn what a typical person earns in a week. That's without all those Nike advertising deals.
Even though the top four all play in the Spanish league it's the Premier League with the most players in the list. Only Wayne Rooney and Gareth Bale represent the UK in terms of home grown talent.
But how does Ronaldo's wage compare with the big heavyweights in other sports?
Usain Bolt raked in a hefty £25.3 million last year. The NFL's highest paid player Matthew Stafford had a £20 million contract at Detroit last year. And some may be surprised that Fernando Alonso is the highest paid F1 driver, taking home £29.6 million form his contract with McLaren Honda.
Matthew Stafford became the highest paid NFL player in history, last year when he signed a £120 million contract extension with the Detroit Lions. Image: PA
Rugby Union is dwarfed by all these figures for 2017 with Ayumu Goromaru signing the biggest contract worth just £1.4 million without the add-ons.
So if you didn't know already, footballers earn a damn sight more than the rest of us and it doesn't look like it's going to stop there. As China begin to pump more money into the Chinese Super League footballers wallets could swell even further.
Wonder who the first player to earn £100 million in a calendar year will be? It doesn't look like we'll be waiting too much longer to find out.
(H/T Business Insider, Time, Pledge Sports, BBC Sport, F1.co.uk)
Topics: Football News, Football