Football Leaks reveals financial secrets of top footballing personalities in the world
The latest FIFA probe into Paul Pogba's transfer to Manchester United and Zlatan Ibrahimovic's humongous goal bonuses came as a massive surprise to the supporters of the club. Now, the recently launched book Football Leaks: The dirty side of football, has spilt more secrets about the financial aspect of footballers’ lives.
The book, which is set to shock the world with its claims, features revealing secrets of some of the biggest players in the world including Cristiano Ronaldo, Carlos Tevez and Gareth Bale. The book in focus is written by Der Spiegel journalists Rafael Buschmann and Michael Wulzinger, in collaboration with the Football Leaks website.
One by one, let's take a look at the big secrets that have been unravelled in this new sensational book:
Cristiano Ronaldo
In 2013, Saudi Arabian telecom firms agreed to a deal with Ronaldo's Irish image rights company – Multisports and Image Management – for a photo shoot for the Middle East company.
Ronaldo earned a massive £920,000 for just four and a half hours of work which included a photo shoot, two mentions of the firm on his social media profiles and five signed shirts. Ronaldo's net worth was a staggering £190 million in 2015 according to the book.
Carlos Tevez
The Argentine striker raised many eyebrows when he moved to the Chinese Super League from his native league. But the most surprising part about his move to Shanghai Shenhua was the eye-popping salary that he was set to earn in China.
Tevez signed a deal worth £17.16m per year after tax deductions which boiled down to £634,615 per week. This humongous figure still didn't make Tevez the highest paid player in the world though. Ezequiel Lavezzi laid claim to that honour as he pocketed £798,000 per week in his deal with Hebei China Fortune.
The book also reveals the bonuses that Tevez has on his current deal. He is set to cash in £788,000 if he starts 70% of the games this season. He will also receive the same figure if Shanghai win the league and double if they win the Asian Champions League. The former Manchester United striker will also earn an extra £390,000 if he finishes as the top scorer for the club in a season.
Gareth Bale
When the Welshman arrived at the Santiago Bernabeu back in 2013, there was speculation of him being the most expensive player in the world at that time. But Real Madrid vehemently denied those claims which was seen as a measure to appease the ego of Cristiano Ronaldo.
Though the deal between Tottenham Hotspur and Real Madrid was done at around £85 million, the club made public a figure of around £77 million which was less than the £80 million they paid back in 2009 for Ronaldo.
Anthony Martial
Manchester United paid AS Monaco £42 million to secure the services of the most sought after teenager at that time, Anthony Martial. Monaco inserted three clauses in his contract which could take the overall deal close to £67.4 million.
One clause out of the three has already been triggered; Manchester United had to pay £8.4 million to Monaco after Martial scored 25 goals for the Red Devils, a feat he achieved last month.
The two remaining clauses of similar amounts are still in place and will be triggered when Martial completes 25 appearances for France and when he gets nominated for the FIFA Player of the Year award.
Mario Balotelli
Balotelli had a year to forget with Liverpool when Brendan Rodgers signed him up in 2014. He did not earn huge wages at that time but the book has revealed that he received an extra £1 million after the season ended thanks to a rather bizarre clause in his contract.
It is mentioned that Balotelli received a million pounds for not getting sent off on three or more occasions in a season.
Bastian Schweinsteiger
The German legend was frozen out of the Manchester United first team by Jose Mourinho this season which made him leave the Premier League for the MLS a few months ago. Schweinsteiger was on an annual salary of £7.55 million at United and Football Leaks has now revealed that a weird clause was present in his contract.
The clause stated that the player would be fined two weeks of wages if he was found criticising the manager on social media.
Rafael Benitez
The Spanish manager had a disastrous 2015/16 season. He was sacked as the Real Madrid manager and later relegated with Newcastle United. But according to the Football Leaks report, it was not all gloom and doom financially for the manager. Benitez was the highest paid manager in the world at one point with Real Madrid paying him £8.5 million as a severance package after sacking him.
Benitez also received a £500,000 bonus after Los Blancos won the Champions League under Zinedine Zidane that season. His salary at Newcastle during the three months of that season was rumoured to be £1 million per month which means that Benitez earned more than £10 million in the 2015/16 season.