Topics: Wayne Rooney, Manchester United, Premier League, Gary Neville
Wayne Rooney revealed his most lucrative Manchester United contract, and the figure left his former teammate, Gary Neville, stunned.
Footballers being paid eye-watering sums of money is no surprise to fans.
Currently, Manchester City forward Erling Haaland is the highest-paid player in world football, having signed a nine-and-a-half-year deal with the club, worth a reported £875,00 per week or £45 million per year, in January.
The average Premier League wage is between £60,000 and £67,000 per week or £3.1 to £3.5 million per year, according to Statista’s data.
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If the stats are correct, an average top-flight footballer earns more in one week than the average UK employee does in a year.
The average yearly wage in the UK, according to ONS, is around £37,000 per year.
And figures will, no doubt, continue to rise in the coming years. But how much did the superstars of the past earn?
Well, Roy Keane, Neville and Rooney all revealed information about their salaries during Thursday’s (November 20) episode of the Overlap, as well as the previous one.
Earlier this year, former United captain Neville said that he “finished on £2.3 million in 2011”, after which Carragher weighed in and said he was underpaid.
In the same episode, Neville read through some of Keane’s deals and revealed that the Irishman earned £2.75 million per year between 2000 and 2003.
But Rooney’s salary dwarfed the others’ wages.
Carragher’s biggest deal at Liverpool totalled around £3 million, which was boosted by a bonus following the Reds’ 2005 Champions League triumph.
When asked what his biggest United contract would have been by Neville, Rooney answered: “The biggest I’ve been on is about £17 million a year.”
Neville then joked: “I think I should’ve been paid a little bit more…” before Keane agreed.
Divided across 52 weeks, the amount is £326,923 per week. This would make Rooney United’s second-highest paid player in the current squad behind Casemiro, with the Brazilian reportedly earning £350,000 per week or £18.2 million per year.
Compare his wage to the rest of the league, and Rooney would still be the Premier League’s fifth top earner behind Haaland, Mohamed Salah, Casemiro and Virgil van Dijk.
When discussing his relatively low wage, Neville explained: “[Money] was never a focus for me.
“I never once worried about the money side of it.
“I just thought that if I can get to the end of my career at 35 or 36 at United, then I know I'll be alright.
“When they offered me seven years on less money, it was better for me than signing for four years on higher money. I always thought in a more cautious way.”
All the players will have supplemented their incomes with a number of endorsements, with Rooney reportedly being paid £1 million per year by Nike to wear the American sportswear brand’s boots during his career, according to the Independent.
