Forbes has just published its annual list of the world's highest-paid footballers, and there is one figure that breaks a two-decade tradition. For the first time since 2005, when the magazine began compiling this ranking, the Premier League does not have several players among the top ten. Only Erling Haaland appears, fourth with around 85 million dollars between salary and sponsorships. LaLiga, by contrast, places four: Kylian Mbappé, Vinicius, Jude Bellingham and Lamine Yamal.
The paradox is plain to see, because the Premier League is, by far, the league that moves the most money in the world. According to Deloitte, its clubs brought in 6.8 billion pounds in the 2024-25 season and paid a record wage bill of 4.4 billion. LaLiga brought in 4.1 billion euros and paid 2.5 billion in wages. The English league spends on salaries almost double what the Spanish one does and, even so, its footballers barely feature among the highest earners.
Part of the explanation is circumstantial. Mohamed Salah, who for years was one of the Premier League's fixtures in these lists, left Liverpool this summer and signed for Turkish side Trabzonspor. Harry Kane, the highest-paid Englishman, plays for Bayern Munich. But circumstances do not explain why the league with the most money does not have more stars at the top of the table. The underlying explanation lies in how that money is distributed.
The Premier League functions as a league of twenty rich clubs. The bulk of its enormous television revenues is shared out equally, so that even the teams fighting to avoid relegation earn more than many of the continent's big clubs. This allows money to be spread in depth: there are dozens of footballers on very high wages spread across the entire league, from Newcastle to Aston Villa or Tottenham, rather than a handful of stars on off-the-scale salaries.
In Spain the opposite happens. Real Madrid and Barcelona together accounted for 52% of all LaLiga revenues in 2024-25, according to Deloitte. That concentration is what allows Madrid to pay Mbappé, Vinicius and Bellingham simultaneously, and Barcelona to sustain Lamine Yamal. The Spanish league is poorer than the English one as a whole, but it has two clubs capable of paying like few others in the world.
The rules add another layer. From this season, the Premier League has replaced its old financial control system with a new one that limits what each club can spend on its squad to 85% of its revenues and profit from player sales. It is a brake designed for the entire squad, not for a single star, but it makes it very difficult for an English club to dramatically raise one player's salary without cutting elsewhere.
And there is one final factor that the Forbes ranking reflects well: it does not measure only what the club pays, but also what players earn off the pitch. Mbappé earns around 30 million dollars a year in sponsorships, Vinicius around 28, and Lamine Yamal around 20. Haaland, with 25, is the only Premier League player who competes in that commercial category. The big brands continue to back the stars of the two Spanish giants, who concentrate global attention.
The Haaland case also serves as a caveat: the Premier League can pay a star when it wants to, as City demonstrate with their striker. What it does not do is concentrate the money in a few players. If the Forbes list extended to one hundred, the Premier League would be full of names.
What the ranking really shows is that European football has two models. The Premier League pays squads and distributes wealth among twenty clubs, which makes it more competitive and deeper, but produces fewer salary superstars. LaLiga pays stars and concentrates the money in two clubs, which allows it to have the world's most expensive players in a league that earns considerably less overall. Neither is better by definition, but each one explains what you see in the list.
And the list conceals another equally striking shift: the league that three years ago looked set to buy the entire ranking has been left with just two names. That is what the second part of this series is about.
