The 20 highest earning footballers: Lionel Messi beats Cristiano Ronaldo again to top football rich list

Lionel Messi has been named as football’s top earner

In the recently released survey by France Football, the magazine revealed the names of 20 of the highest earning footballers in the world right now, with Barcelona forward Lionel Messi topping the list for the fifth time in the last six years with a total earning of £48 million.

Messi takes home a staggering annual salary of £26 million as Barcelona’s highest earning player in addition to his high profile endorsement contracts with Turkish Airlines, Electronic Arts and Adidas.

He is followed by rival Cristiano Ronaldo who raked in £40m last year, £10m less than what he did earlier. On the third place is Barcelona’s Neymar with a take home earning of £26.8 million last year, making him the highest earning footballer under the age of 25.

The 20 highest-earning footballers in the world:

Position	Player	Club	Net Earning (€)
1	Lionel Messi	Barcelona	65 million
2	Cristiano Ronaldo	Real Madrid	54 million
3	Neymar JR	Barcelona	36.5 million
4	Thiago Silva	Paris Saint-Germain	27.5 million
5	Robin Van Persie	Manchester United	25.6 million
6	Gareth Bale	Real Madrid	23.8 million
7	Wayne Rooney	Manchester United	22.5 million
8	Zlatan Ibrahimovic	Paris Saint-Germain	21.5 million
9	Sergio Agüero	Manchester City	21.2 million
10	Robert Lewandowski	Bayern Munich	20.2 million
11	Eden Hazard	Chelsea	20 million
	Yaya Toure	Manchester City	20 million
13	Angel Di Maria	Manchester United	18.5 million
	Radamel Falcao	Manchester United	18.5 million
15	Iker Casillas	Real Madrid	17.8 million
16	David Silva	Manchester City	17.3 million
	Cesc Fabregas	Chelsea	17.3 million
18	David Luiz	Paris Saint-Germain	17.2 million
19	Karim Benzema	Real Madrid	17 million
20	Mario Götze	Bayern Munich	16.9 million