Cristiano Ronaldo beats Lionel Messi to title of world's highest-paid athlete as football flexes its financial muscles

James Benge8 June 2016

Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi have been battling for supremacy on the football for the best part of a decade and it seems their battle has no moved from the Spanish league to the money league, with the pair rated the two highest paid athletes in world sport by Forbes magazine.

It is Champions League winner Ronaldo who finished in top spot, earning £60.7million to his great rival’s £56.19m.

The Real Madrid forward has become the first footballer ever to top the global rankings and only the third sportsman to take top honours since 2001. Tiger Woods and Floyd Mayweather had claimed top spot in every previous year.

However the monumental earnings of both of the football stars put them some distance clear of much of the competition. Forbes calculates Ronaldo’s salary to be £38.5m per annum, Messi’s to be £36.8m. Of the remainder of the top 20 only one other sportsman, Baltimore Ravens’ quarterback Joe Flacco, takes home more than £30m in their pay packet.

Ronaldo finds himself top of Forbes’ rankings thanks to sizeable endorsement deals with partners including Herbalife, Tag Heuer and Nike and his own underwear and shoe brands.

With such enviable earning power the 31-year-old scarcely need to earn another penny in the final years of his playing career, and he has vowed that his future will be dictated by footballing achievements, not financial rewards.

“'If you speak about the money I will go to Qatar,” he said in December, when his future in Madrid was a matter for serious debate. “They probably have more money than Manchester City.

“But it's not about the money, it's about the passion.”

Forbes Most Valuable Soccer Teams 2016

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NBA star LeBron James and Roger Federer are the other two names on the list to break the £40m mark in terms of total endorsements, both benefitting from significant endorsements from Nike. The former signed a lifetime deal with the sportswear manufacturer in December which is believed to net the Cleveland Cavaliers forward significantly more than £20m-a-year.

There are two British names among Forbes top twenty, Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton and golfer Rory McIlroy, ranked 11th and 17th. Despite another season at the top of the sport Andy Murray is some distance from sport’s money making elite; the world No.2 is ranked 74.

Forbes’ list is dominated by American sporting icons, including six NFL players (all quarter-backs), three basketball icons and three golfers.

The business magazine yesterday published its list of the highest earning female athletes, topped by Serena Williams. Despite her dominance of the women’s game Williams earnings of £20m are around £6m less than that of San Diego Chargers’ quarter-back Philip Rivers, a player who has competed in just nine NFL playoff games and only once reached a conference final.

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