Highest-Paid Soccer Players 2026: Messi Hits A New High But Can’t Touch Ronaldo
Forbes Daily BriefingShow Notes
This summer represented a bit of a changing of the guard on the soccer pitch, as exemplified by Spain’s winger Lamine Yamal, who hoisted the World Cup trophy at age 19 by beating Argentine legend Lionel Messi—the very man who had bathed him when he was an infant for a now-viral photoshoot in 2007.
But while Yamal is already reaping the rewards of his star turn on American soil, he and the rest of soccer’s new generation still have a long way to go to close the financial gap on Messi and his Portuguese rival Cristiano Ronaldo, two of the greatest money-making machines the sports world has ever seen.
For the fourth consecutive season, and the 12th time in the last 13 years, Ronaldo and Messi are the world’s two highest-paid soccer players, due to haul in $300 million and $145 million, respectively, according to Forbes estimates. (French striker Kylian Mbappé, who lands at No. 3 on Forbes’ list of the top-earning soccer players this year with an estimated $100 million, made a cameo at No. 1 in 2022 thanks to a massive signing bonus he received when he extended his contract with Paris Saint-Germain, two years before he left the club for Real Madrid.)
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