Portuguese star continues to dominate global earnings as Messi, Benzema and Haaland follow
Al Nasr’s Cristiano Ronaldo tops the list. PHOTO: AFP
PARIS:
Portugal great Cristiano Ronaldo has once again topped the Forbes list of highest-paid footballers for the 2025-26 season, as one of three members of the top 10 plying their trade in Saudi Arabia.
It is the sixth time in the past decade that Ronaldo has topped the Forbes list and comes just over a week after Bloomberg announced that the 40-year-old had become soccer’s first billionaire.
With on and off-field earnings of around $280 million, Al Nassr’s Ronaldo will earn more than double that of second-placed rival Lionel Messi, whose $130 million estimate consists of more off-field earnings than he did playing for American club Inter Miami.
Next is France’s former Ballon d’Or winner Karim Benzema, who earns $104 million a year thanks to his massive contract with Saudi Al Ittihad.
The third member of the top 10 who plays in Saudi Arabia is Senegalese forward Sadio Mane, a teammate of Ronaldo who earns around $54 million in eighth place.
The number of players from Saudi clubs in the top 10 compared to a year ago fell by one as Brazil’s Neymar left Al Hilal in January to return to his boyhood club Santos in Sao Paulo.
He was third on the list at $110 million in 2024-25, but now apparently makes a paltry $38 million, mostly from off-field contracts.
Despite the power and wealth of the English Premier League — whose clubs spent a record 2.6 billion pounds ($3.5 billion) on transfers in the summer — only two players from that competition are in the top 10 with Manchester City’s Erling Haaland fifth and Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah seventh.
But it is Spain’s La Liga that has the most representatives in the top 10, including three Real Madrid players, Kylian Mbappe (fourth), Vinicius Jr (sixth) and Jude Bellingham (ninth).
While the fourth player from Spain is Barcelona’s teenage starlet Lamine Yamal, who is 10th with $43 million.
“Combined, the world’s ten highest-paid soccer players are set to earn an estimated $945 million during the 2025-26 campaign,” Forbes said in a statement.
a href=”https://tribune.com.pk/story/2572931/billionaire-ronaldo-tops-forbes-footballer-rich-list-again”>Source link
