Elite players are set apart by their income, and Cristiano Ronaldo surely found a way of proving this point.

According to a report by La Gazzetta dello Sport, the Portuguese footballer is uncontested as the top earner in the Italian Serie A. While this comes as no surprise given his massive wage at Real Madrid and the considerable improvement offered by Juve to sign him two years ago, what is truly eye-whopping is the difference between himself and the runner-up in this list.

While CR7 earns over $34M after taxes with the bianconeri, team-mate Matthijs De Ligt makes it to the second place in this ranking by "only" collecting $8.9M, almost 75% less than the Portuguese ace.

The next player in this list is new Inter Milan signing Romelu Lukaku, who signed a lucrative deal with the nerazzurri worth $8.3M per year.  His wage tops Gonzalo Higuain's salary by just a thousand dollars, while Paulo Dybala comes in as the fifth top earner in the Italian top-flight with just over $8M.

The ranking also shows that nine of the top 10 earners currently play for Juventus, with Lukaku being the only exception. New signings Aaron Ramsey and Adrien Rabiot are ranked sixth and seventh, respectively, while Miralem Pjanic, Douglas Costa and Mario Mandzukic complete the ranking published by the Italian newspaper.