The 20 Highest Paid Players in Football (Including Sponsorship)

After publishing a list of the 50 highest paid players (per salary given by clubs), here is a list of the 20 highest players in football, but this time included sponsorship contracts; which changes a lot of things.

Without a surprise David Beckham comes first with an impressive 31 million Euros per year including 25 million for sponsorship contracts and 1.8 million of bonuses by the LA Galaxy (for merchandising).

In the top five, three players play in Barcelona, but the most represented club out of the 20 players is Chelsea which has five players, which confirms their financial power.

Six players are from England and nine of them play in England. Kaka who was top of the list for salaries given by club “only” ranks 9th on this list.

The salaries are in millions of Euros per year…

1. David Beckham, LA Galaxy, 31M

2. Ronaldinho, FC Barcelona, 24.1M

3. Leo Messi, FC Barcelona, 23M

4. Cristiano Ronaldo, Manchester United, 19.5M

5. Thierry Henry, FC Barcelona, 16.8M

6. John Terry, Chelsea, 13.9M

7. Michael Ballack, Chelsea, 13.8M

8. Ronaldo, AC Milan, 13.4M

9. Kaka, AC Milan, 12.9M

10. Steven Gerrard, Liverpool FC, 11.8M

11. Andriy Shevchenko, Chelsea FC, 11.5M

12. Wayne Rooney, Manchester United, 11.5M

13. Michael Owen, Newcastle United, 11.1M

14. Alessandro Del Piero, Juventus, 11M

15. Fabio Cannavaro, Real Madrid, 10.8M

16. Didier Drogba, Chelsea, 10.8M

17. Frank Lampard, Chelsea, 10.7M

18. Francesco Totti, AS Roma, 9.8M

19. Iker Casillas, Real Madrid, 8.8M

20. Luca Toni, Bayern Munich, 8.4M