Football's 2026 Rich List: What Changed Below Ronaldo and Messi

Three soccer balls lined up on a bright green football pitch

Photo: BASTIAN WARDANA/Pexels

Every year Forbes publishes its list of the highest-paid footballers, and every year I tell myself the top won't change. This year I was right about the top and wrong about almost everything underneath it. The 2026 ranking has Cristiano Ronaldo first and Lionel Messi second for the 12th time in 13 years, but the story sits further down the list.

First, what these numbers actually are

The figures are projected earnings for the 2026-27 season, before taxes and agent fees. They mix salary and bonuses from clubs with off-field money like endorsements, image rights and business income. Transfer fees aren't counted. So this isn't take-home pay and it isn't net worth. It's a snapshot of what each player is expected to bring in this season.

The top ten add up to an estimated $942 million. Ronaldo and Messi alone account for almost half of it.

Ronaldo is still on another planet

At 41, Ronaldo leads for the fourth season running with about $300 million. Roughly $250 million comes from his Al Nassr contract and $50 million from endorsements and business. Here's the part that gets me: his playing salary alone would top the list even if he had zero sponsors. Forbes says he's the first active athlete to pass $2 billion in gross career earnings.

Messi is second at $145 million, his highest figure yet, split almost evenly between Inter Miami and sponsors. That balance tells you how much of his value now lives off the pitch.

Madrid is quietly winning the money game

Three of the top ten play for Real Madrid. Kylian Mbappe is third at $100 million, Vinicius Jr. fifth at $76 million and Jude Bellingham eighth at $45 million. Add Barcelona's Lamine Yamal and La Liga has four players in the group. I don't think many people would have predicted that a few years ago.

The Yamal jump

Yamal is sixth with about $55 million at just 19. His off-field income roughly doubled in a year, from around $10 million to about $20 million. The reason is simple: he won the World Cup with Spain this summer, and sponsors move fast when a teenager becomes a household name overnight. He's the one I'd watch climb next year.

Where is the Premier League?

This surprised me most. Erling Haaland, at $85 million, is the only Premier League player in the top ten. Forbes says it's the first time since the ranking began in 2005 that England's top flight has had just one. The league is still rich, with the biggest TV deals in the sport, but the very biggest individual pay packets now come from Saudi Arabia and Spain.

Harry Kane at Bayern Munich, Sadio Mane at Al Nassr and Mohamed Salah round out the list, which shows how spread out football wealth has become.

For the full top ten and the on-field versus off-field split for each player, Global Celebrity Meter's breakdown of the highest-paid soccer players of 2026 covers it all.

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