Barcelona star Lionel Messi has been revealed as the top earning footballer in the world in the latest issue of France Football magazine. The 31-year-old Argentine beat his arch-nemesis Cristiano Ronaldo to the top spot with a valuation of 130 million euros, whereas the latter ranked second with 17 million euros short of his earnings.
To calculate the income of the footballers, the publication took into consideration factors such as salary, bonuses and commercial revenue.
With the top two world stars occupying the topmost positions, Paris Saint-Germain star Neymar Jr. came in third with 91.5 million euros while Antoine Griezmann of Atletico Madrid and Gareth Bale of Real Madrid completed the top-four with 44 million and 40.2 million euros respectively.
Manchester United's Alexis Sanchez is the only player from the English Premier League whose name is among the top 10. The Chilean winger ranked in seventh position with total earnings of 30.7 million euros. Check below for the names of players who made the Top 20:
Relatively, a list was made for football managers. Here Atletico Madrid's Diego Simeone secured top spot with a total earning of 41 million euros. The Argentine manager recently signed a new deal that will keep him at Los Rojiblancos until 2021.
Interestingly, two football managers who have been sacked from their respective posts this season successfully made the list. Ex-Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho as well as former AS Monaco head coach Thierry Henry completed the top three with 31 million euros and 25.5 million euros respectively.
Manchester City's Pep Guardiola ranked fourth with 24 million euros while Barcelona's Ernesto Valverde finished fifth with 23 million euros.