Forbes estimates place Cristiano Ronaldo's projected earnings at $300 million for the period, with Lionel Messi set to collect $145 million — a pairing that has occupied the top two spots on the football pay scale in four consecutive seasons and in 12 of the past 13 years.

Ranked third among the world's highest-paid footballers this year with estimated earnings of $100 million, Kylian Mbappé briefly held the top position in 2022, when a substantial contract-extension bonus from Paris Saint-Germain — the club he would go on to leave for Real Madrid two years later — pushed his annual figure to the head of the table.

Projected figures place Ronaldo's Al Nassr compensation at around $250 million for the 2026-27 campaign, with a further $50 million anticipated through endorsement deals and related business activity. Those earnings build on a milestone reached earlier this year when his career pretax income crossed the $2 billion threshold, a level no other active athlete had previously reached.

Messi is projected to reach the $2 billion career-earnings mark within the coming year. He stands to draw roughly $70 million from his Inter Miami contract in MLS alongside an additional $75 million tied to commercial and other off-pitch ventures.

According to a Forbes wealth assessment, both Messi and Ronaldo have accumulated net worth figures that place them past the billion-dollar mark — a calculation that excludes tax liabilities and the cuts taken by agents and agencies.

Together, those two players account for close to half of the $942 million that the sport's ten top earners are projected to pull in during the current season — a combined figure that edges just below the $945 million recorded in 2025, even as most of the nine players who carried over from that previous list are set to earn more than they did twelve months ago.

Karim Benzema — whose earnings over the prior year reached an estimated $104 million — stands out as the most notable departure from the previous edition's roster, having parted ways with Al Hilal in August after a mid-season club switch within the Saudi Pro League from Al Ittihad, leaving him without a team at present.

Bayern Munich forward Harry Kane, whose earnings of around $42 million place him among the ten highest-paid footballers of the year, returns to that bracket for the first time since his 2023 appearance on the list.

Benzema's departure from the earnings table leaves the Saudi Pro League with just two representatives — Ronaldo alongside Al Nassr teammate Sadio Mané, who sits seventh on an estimated $54 million as he heads into the final year of his contract. That narrowing of the field has allowed Real Madrid's Vinicius Jr. to move into contention at the upper end of the rankings, placing him alongside Mbappé and Erling Haaland, the Manchester City forward whose public profile expanded during the summer after Norway advanced to the World Cup quarterfinals under his captaincy.

Mbappé, Haaland — whose reported earnings of $85 million place him fourth on the list — and Vinicius, drawing $76 million at fifth, are all in their mid-to-late twenties, an age bracket that positions them to take on the global-profile roles that Ronaldo, at 41, and Messi, at 39, have carried across their careers at the sport's upper tier.

Lamine Yamal's total earnings for the current season are projected at around $55 million — a rise from the $43 million he brought in the previous year — driven in part by sponsorship agreements he has added with American Eagle, Coca-Cola, and McDonald's, alongside his club commitments at Barcelona.

Four players from La Liga appear on the earnings list alongside Yamal, three of them — Mbappé, Vinicius, and Jude Bellingham — wearing Real Madrid colours, with Bellingham's estimated $45 million placing him at number eight in the rankings.

Both Bellingham and Kane — whose combined performances helped steer England to a third-place World Cup result — have placed two England players inside the global top ten, a pairing not seen since 2018. Two English footballers have not appeared on the same list since David Beckham and Wayne Rooney featured together in the 2013 rankings.

For the first time since 2005 — when the football earnings list was introduced — no representatives from the Premier League appear among the top earners, a gap attributable to both Bellingham and Kane pursuing their careers at clubs outside England.

Ronaldo told a news channel in August that the 2026-27 season will "probably" be his last year of professional football, though he has not announced a definitive decision on when he will end a career that has featured 981 goals in club and international play — leaving him 19 short of becoming the first player to reach 1,000.

Three of those goals were scored across Portugal's five fixtures at this summer's World Cup, though the 41-year-old forward is currently on a provisional suspension from the national squad — a status that followed his departure from training camp in September over a disagreement about his role in the UEFA Nations League. Via a social media post, he indicated that representing his nation on the competitive stage remains his intention once his eligibility window reopens.

Ronaldo's focus at Al Nassr centres on delivering back-to-back league titles for the Saudi club.

Prior to his three MLS campaigns, Messi carried Argentina through a World Cup run in which his eight-goal contribution brought the team to the final — a match against Spain that required extra time to settle, with the trophy going to Spain. In the weeks that followed the tournament, he stepped away from international duty with Argentina, with a farewell appearance in a friendly against Benin — at 39, among the older forwards to have worn the shirt.

His standing as the public face of MLS appears intact, while his pay package is understood to incorporate profit-sharing arrangements tied to two of the league's commercial partners — Adidas and Apple TV. Under the terms of a deal extending to 2028, he would gain the right — upon retirement — to purchase an ownership share in Inter Miami, a club whose franchise valuation has reached an estimated $1.35 billion, placing it at the top of MLS in that regard.

During the current calendar year, Messi formalised sponsorship arrangements with OpenAI and Duracell while also taking ownership of Eldense, a second-division Spanish football club, following an earlier acquisition of Cornellà — a fifth-tier, semi-professional outfit operating out of Barcelona.

At 27, Mbappé brought his longstanding Nike arrangement to a close in September — a relationship that had been in place since 2006, when he was eight years old — and signed a new deal with On, the listed Swiss footwear brand, structured as an equity stake. Mbappé led all scorers at that summer's World Cup, netting ten times to claim the Golden Boot, even as France departed the tournament at the fourth-place stage.

Ranked fourth on the earnings list at $85 million, Haaland — 26 years old and playing his club football at Manchester City — collected $60 million from on-field sources and $25 million from commercial deals. His 22 World Cup goals place him atop the all-time scoring table for the tournament, and Norway's run to its farthest-ever stage in the competition coincided with his Instagram audience growing to 77 million, roughly twice the figure he carried into the event.

Agreements with Revolut, a UK-based digital bank, and Walovi, a Chinese tea brand, were added to Haaland's commercial portfolio during the year, alongside an existing Nike arrangement. A panel operating independently of the Premier League found that Manchester City violated the league's financial rules at various points between 2009 and 2018, a determination that places the club's continued membership of the top flight in doubt.

Ranked fifth on the list, Vinicius Jr. — the 26-year-old Brazilian forward who plays for Real Madrid — draws a combined $76 million, split between $48 million earned on the pitch and $28 million generated through commercial partnerships, after signing a fresh six-year deal in August that ties him to the club through 2032. The 26-year-old winger scored at least once in every group-stage fixture Brazil contested at the 2026 World Cup and had posted a minimum of 20 goals across all competitions in each of the five preceding Real Madrid seasons, though Brazil's tournament run ended at the Round of 16.

Yamal scored one goal across Spain's World Cup run, contributing to Barcelona's second-ever World Cup title for Spain. Sixteen goals and twelve assists across the 2025-26 La Liga campaign earned the 19-year-old winger the division's player-of-the-year honour, with Barcelona securing the title in part through those contributions.

During the Africa Cup of Nations final held in January, a penalty awarded to host nation Morocco in the closing minutes of the match drew widespread dispute, placing Sadio Mané at the centre of the controversy. When the Senegalese squad left the field in a show of discontent, Mané persuaded them to return. A 1-0 win over Morocco — with the deciding margin coming from a missed Moroccan penalty — left Senegal on the verge of a second tournament title, though an official ruling tied to formal protests later stripped the result, and an appeal by Senegal against that decision remains ongoing.

A Saudi Pro League championship — Al Nassr's first in seven years — arrived last season through the combined efforts of Mané and Ronaldo on the pitch.

Ranked eighth on the list at $45 million in total earnings, Jude Bellingham — the 23-year-old Real Madrid midfielder representing England — draws $29 million from on-field sources and $16 million from commercial partnerships, among them a long-term arrangement with New Balance. At the World Cup, he scored seven times in all, with a pair of goals coming in a Round of 16 match against Mexico and two further strikes helping to secure a quarterfinal result against Norway. Bellingham's deal with Real Madrid runs to 2029, and the 23-year-old is understood to be in discussions over a fresh agreement that would extend his stay at the club.

Kane's four-goal haul for England at the 2026 World Cup pushed his cumulative tally across all World Cup appearances to 14. Away from football, his commercial portfolio spans a stake in men's grooming label Onside alongside endorsement ties to Adidas's Predator boot range, Louis Vuitton, and Skims. His total earnings stand at $42 million, split between $29 million generated on the pitch and $13 million from off-field ventures, at age 33 with Bayern Munich. Talks over a deal that would keep the 33-year-old forward at Bayern Munich until 2029 are said to be progressing, roughly two years after he moved to the German club following a 14-season stint at Tottenham Hotspur.

Positioned tenth on the earnings list, Mohamed Salah — who was 34 at the time and plays internationally for Egypt — drew a total of $40 million, with on-field pay and commercial deals each contributing an equal $20 million share, before his Liverpool tenure ended and he moved to Trabzonspor in Turkey's top flight. The transfer followed reported attention from various competitions including MLS and the Saudi Pro League. Structured across two years, the deal hands Salah — now 34 and playing as a winger — roughly $19 million per year, with an added clause entitling him to a 20 percent cut of any club-sold merchandise bearing his name.

During the World Cup, Salah guided Egypt to a Round of 16 appearance — the furthest the national side had ever advanced — before a two-goal cushion evaporated late in the match against Argentina, ending in defeat. Sponsorship agreements with Adidas, Pepsi, and Vodafone remain part of Salah's commercial portfolio.