Highest salaries in Europe: PSG trio top - Hazard earns more than Lewandowski and Haaland

Paris Saint-Germain have three of the highest-paid players in European football in their ranks, who cost them a combined €156 million - and the cumulative salaries for Kylian Mbappé, Neymar and Lionel Messi do not include bonuses. French sports newspaper L’Équipe has published the top earners in Ligue 1 and also the best-paid players from the Premier League, LaLiga and the Bundesliga.

The top earner with an annual gross salary of €72m in the 2022/23 season is Mbappé, followed by Neymar (€44.1m) and Messi (€40.5m), who saw their market values drop in this week’s Ligue 1 update. While Mbappé and Neymar receive around 50% net of the amounts, the Argentine World Cup winner pockets more. Players who have not been registered in France in the past five years only have to pay tax on 70% of their income when they move to the French top tier.

Away from PSG’s star trio, footballers at Europe’s other top clubs earn significantly less. Real Madrid’s benchwarmer Eden Hazard follows in fourth place in the salary rankings, earning annual wages of €27m until 2024 - more than Robert Lewandowski (€26m) at Barcelona or Erling Haaland (€22m) at Manchester City.

Premier League top earners: De Bruyne ahead of Haaland without bonuses

The fact that Europe’s top striker only earns €22m gross is because a 22-year-old new signing was not supposed to feature as the Citizens’ highest earner ahead of veteran Kevin De Bruyne (€23.4m). According to English media reports, it is considered certain that Haaland is already de facto at the top of Man City’s salary rankings thanks to bonuses that are easy to achieve, however.

While the Bundesliga is right up there in Europe with the Bayern Munich trio of Sadio Mané (€24m), Manuel Neuer (€20m) and Thomas Müller (€20m), the four highest-paid footballers in Serie A, Dusan Vlahovic, Wojciech Szczesny and Leonardo Bonucci of Juventus and Inter Milan’s Marcelo Brozovic, earn around €12m per season. Premier League footballers David de Gea (€22m) and Jadon Sacho (€20.4m) of Manchester United and Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah (€20.4m) rank just outside the top ten. The best-paid football player away from Europe’s top leagues is Cristiano Ronaldo, who is reportedly earning around €71m a season at Saudi Arabian club Al-Nassr FC.