6. Luke Wilkshire
Soccer

$5.0 million

A surprising inclusion as the best paid soccer player and evidence of the sport’s generational change. Contracted to play with Russian club Dynamo Moscow until 2014, the 30 year old is an important member of the Socceroos team.

8. Tim Cahill
Soccer

$4.5 million

Cahill recently halted his long career in the English Premier League to become one of the highest-paid soccer players in the United States. He plays with the New York Red Bulls in Major League Soccer and has endorsement deals with adidas and Weet-Bix, among others.

13. Mark Schwarzer
$3.5 million

Soccer

The veteran goalkeeper is one of the first selected in the Socceroos and plans to continue playing until after the 2014 World Cup. He plays club football for Fulham in the English Premier League.

14. Brett Holman
$3.5 million

Soccer

Holman’s pay got a boost when he transferred from Dutch club AZ Alkmaar to the UK’s Aston Villa this year. He was named Australian footballer of the year.

24. Mark Bresciano
$2.2 million

Soccer

Moved from one Middle East club to another this year and now finds himself in Qatar playing for Al-Gharafa. Top scorer at Al-Nasr last year.

29. Scott McDonald
$2.0 million

Soccer

He is believed to have turned down a chance to triple his salary by moving to Saudi Arabian club Al-Hilal. He has been in good form at Middlesborough.

41. Lucas Neill
$1.5 million

Soccer

Left Al-Jazira to join another United Arab Emirates club Al-Wasl in August. Benefits from the country’s tax-free status.

44. Adam Federici
$1.3 million

Soccer

Agreed to three more years at Reading in August. Has been at the English club since 2004 and has benefited from its promotion to the Premier League.

ALMOST THERE

Missing the Top 50 Sports Earners list doesn’t mean you have had a bad year. BRW estimates that there are at least another 20 sportspeople who have made at least $1 million from their involvement in professional sport in 2012. Here they are.

Brett Emerton (Soccer)

Chris Herd (Soccer)

Rhys Williams (Soccer)

Brad Jones (Soccer)

Saša Ognenovski (Soccer)

BRW are a fair way off target if they think that Emerton is anywhere near $1m/year.

Not trying to start a code war, but i do like the fact the no AFL player makes the list until number 25.

Is that any surprise? There is only one professional league in the world...and it is salary capped.

And it is a shit sport.

I like that there are only 4 VFL players on the list, and my knowledge of them is as follows:

25. Gary Ablett (AFL): $2 million - I have heard of his dad
34. Tom Scully (AFL): $1.8 million - Never heard of him
36. Israel Folau (AFL): $1.5 million - Rugby player who decided he would take a million dollar pay cut to avoid having to play the stupid Victorian game ever again
45. Chris Judd (AFL): $1.2 million - Heard of him, don't know his position or club though.

I am a sports nut, not just football but like most people in the 207.5 countries where that stupid game isn't played I have no idea who their "world famous in Melbourne" superstars are.

Is that any surprise? There is only one professional league in the world...and it is salary capped.

And it is a shit sport.

I like that there are only 4 VFL players on the list

afl is shit

Your call, but its doing pretty well without your support.

Not trying to start a code war, but i do like the fact the no AFL player makes the list until number 25.

also, I didnt realise cricketers got paid so much

I love it how you call it VFL when the current premiers are from your own backyard.

In today's money and at his peak, Harry Kewell would be earning $15 to $20M/year.

In today's money and at his peak, Harry Kewell would be earning $15 to $20M/year.

So... More than Ronaldo and Messi?

Har har no ALF playaz on dat list lulz

-PB

Including endorsements, Ronaldo is estimated to be earning about $50M/year.

25. Gary Ablett, salary cap concessions for AFL's corporate interest.

45. Chris Judd "The only AFL player to make the list without relying on salary cap concessions for expanding clubs. Salary includes controversial Visy deal." Don't know what the deal is but I know Visy is an admitted price fixer.

Number 36 Israel Folau doesn't count because of course as he may have drawn a paycheck from the AFL he is in no way an AFL player: "One of AFL’s worst players this year, Folau was also one of its best paid. He was signed by Greater Western Sydney before its debut season last year as a marketing stunt. After failing to establish himself, he quit the game at the end of the season". Number 35 is also interesting, a guy called Saverio Rocca who left AFL to go to the NFL.

The Judd Visy deal has been all over the sports news down here last few weeks as it looks like it will no longer be counted outside the salary cap. Think it was either 200 or 250k a year extra for being a consultant for Visy though no one seems to sure what exactly he does (and they also mentioned something about another 18-19 Carlton players on the books for Visy in some capacity, but I never heard anything more apart from the brief mention)

Except we're not talking about endorsements, until you brought it up

Cricketers have traditionally made most of their money from sponsorships. Now they are picking up all these extra $$$ from the 20/20 tournaments (Big Bash, IPL, etc.).

Yes we were, all these figures throughout the piece have included endorsements.

http://www.forbes.com/athletes/

Ronaldo, Beckham, Messi, Rooney, Aguero, and Kaka all make above US$20 mil with Torres and Yaya Toure just behind.

Kewell probably would have been closer to $10-15 mil a year but you have to remember he was on at least 3 Million pounds a year, which would have been somewhere around Aus$9 mil in 2003,plus he would have received massive sponsorship in England and especially Australia given he was the most recognizable face for football over here.

And, conversely, 90% of the world is doing pretty well with football and never having heard of AFL.

BRW are a fair way off target if they think that Emerton is anywhere near $1m/year.

And yet in no way does that have any relevance to the AFL's overwhelming financial success in this country.

BTW 90%....lol. Pull the other one.
India, Pakistan, USA, China, Bangladesh represent 45.5% of the world population on not one of those countries is Football the dominant sport.

Looks good for cricket though.

And yet in no way does that have any relevance to the AFL's overwhelming financial success in this country.

BTW 90%....lol. Pull the other one.
India, Pakistan, USA, China, Bangladesh represent 45.5% of the world population on not one of those countries is Football the dominant sport.

Looks good for cricket though.

who cares. football is the most dominant sport in the world while afl is backwater

at least in those countries there are millions of people kicking footballs and playing soccer

unlike the propaganda written articles made by afl sympathisers in the herald and telegraph trying to convince people that afl is being spread and becoming "increasingly popular" in such countries:lol:

filthy creten

Well If you want to completely change what we're talking about with pointless information, I can do that too.

Who cares about Football when American Football rakes in 80,000+ people a game and is steadily growing in England with a regular season game being played there once a season.
We have the best stadium in the world that fits over 100k at a cost of 1.3B

In the last TV rights we scored a nice $20B!


Enjoy your Thugby muppet.

Edited by Synthesized: 15/12/2012 12:29:40 AM

nfl also has a 16 game regular season, lack of worldwide proffesional leagues and will never have the global outreach of football. no sport compares! the combined revenue and turnover of every european club alone superseeds it, nevermind the rest of the world!

dont get all mad because i speak the truth. afl is backwater. you silly new dawner that jumped on the soccer bandwagon(man city supporter even worse, disgusting) within the last 2 years getting all offended by my words of wisdom. what are you even doing on these forums peasant!? :lol:

thugby? what is that supposed to mean? some indirect knock at rugby? rugby can lick my nads for all i care LMAO! football is all im interested in

hello ken

hes just another butthurt multi code fan that comes onto these forums expecting to have his testicles stroked. i for one, am not having that since it's such a pitiful sport and the child needs to learn his place

Well If you want to completely change what we're talking about with pointless information, I can do that too.

Who cares about Football when American Football rakes in 80,000+ people a game and is steadily growing in England with a regular season game being played there once a season.
We have the best stadium in the world that fits over 100k at a cost of 1.3B

In the last TV rights we scored a nice $20B!


Enjoy your Thugby muppet.

Who cares about Football when American Football rakes in 80,000+ people a game and is steadily growing in England with a regular season game being played there once a season.

We have the best stadium in the world that fits over 100k at a cost of 1.3B

Cool story bro. How are the London Monarchs travelling these days, anyway?

Is that the stadium who's grand opening was Costa Rica vs Guadeloupe? Don't sound like NFL teams to me :-k

I don't see anywhere in my post where I disputed AFL's financial (and, I'll add, political) utter dominance here in Aus, or perhaps at least where I'm from in Melbourne.

And I didn't say that football is the #1 domestic sport in the specific countries that you chose to name.

What I did say is that "90% of the world ... never [has] heard of AFL". While I think that may well be literally true, colloquially speaking my contention is that AFL is not the dominant domestic professional football code in countries totaling 90% of the world population. If you have any legitimate surveys or studies to disprove either my literal or colloquial point please go ahead and post the links.

Am I incorrect?

I am not much of a fan of cricket, the summer weekends of my childhood spent watching my dad in the Ballarat district 3rds from the car can attest, but I won't shy from paying the game it's dues for its fanatical support in the Subcontinent, which will only improve in sporting status with the eventual economic rise of India. But to compare whichever version of the cricket world cup they have to THE World Cup? Please.

Oh, and which sport is more dominant in attendance, participation or economic terms than football in China, by the way?

And for the record, no, I will politely decline to pull anything of yours, thanks for asking though, hope your Friday night improves elsewhere.

Edited by paladisious: 15/12/2012 12:15:40 AM

And, conversely, 90% of the world is doing pretty well with football and never having heard of AFL.

Who needs global reach when you have self sustaining dominance worth tens of billions! [size=8]But then again with so much success global reach is eventually inevitable[/size]. NFL on free to air Aus TV, every tom dick and harry walking around with some for of NFL merch (mainly caps) local leagues popping up across the world.

I ain't mad, just having fun on your behalf.

It's great that Australian kids can grow up and aspire to play the great Australian game professionally, and make a very good living out of it.

900 professional contracts, and an average annual salary of $300k, with 18 year olds starting at between $80k and $100k per annum, and where the top quartile will earn between $500k and $1.2m per annum.

It's a good news story for Australian sport.

We should all be proud.

hello ken

hes just another butthurt multi code fan that comes onto these forums expecting to have his testicles stroked. i for one, am not having that since it's such a pitiful sport and the child needs to learn his place

Also worth adding, that Luke is one of the highly regarded and well respected Aussie footballers (amongst players). Tipped for the socceroos arm band and to play til he's 40.

No, no. Not surprising at all. Just enjoyable. Reminds them of their true place in the world.

It's great that Australian kids can grow up and aspire to play the great Australian game professionally, and make a very good living out of it.

900 professional contracts, and an average annual salary of $300k, with 18 year olds starting at between $80k and $100k per annum, and where the top quartile will earn between $500k and $1.2m per annum.

It's a good news story for Australian sport.

We should all be proud.