The World Cup's Highest-Paid Players
Here's a look at soccer's brightest and best-compensated stars who will show off their skills at the tournament in Germany starting June 9
"Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I'm very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that."
Legendary Liverpool Football Club manager Bill Shankly's attitude pretty much sums up the view of the millions of fans around the world who will spend a month glued to their TV sets after soccer's World Cup kicks off on June 9. The upcoming tournament in Germany will showcase not just the best players in the world but also the highest-paid. Using data compiled by France Football, BusinessWeek has assembled a slide show of the top earners who will play in the World Cup. As you'll see, soccer salaries (data here are for the 2004/05 season) often pale in comparison to the money players can earn off the playing field from product endorsements, image rights, and other types of contracts.
And how does their pay stack up against that of corporate chieftains? To compare the two worlds, we mined the compensation data available from the experts at Capital IQ. CEOs certainly can earn much, much more than footballers. But the sport's stars measure up to the likes of News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch, Polo's Ralph Lauren, and Motorola's Ed Zander. For each soccer star, we provided a comparable corporate leader.