For two decades, the Premier League could claim with some justification that the world’s best-paid footballers either played in England or eventually wanted to. The 2026 edition of Forbes’ annual ranking of soccer’s highest-paid players tells a different story, with Spain’s La Liga supplying four of the top 10 and the Premier League only one.
Kylian Mbappé leads the La Liga contingent in third place, with estimated earnings of €89 million ($100 million) for the 2026-27 season. He is followed by his Real Madrid teammate Vinícius Júnior in fifth with €68 million ($76 million), Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal in sixth with €49 million ($55 million), and a third Real Madrid player, Jude Bellingham, in eighth with €40 million ($45 million).
Manchester City striker Erling Haaland, fourth on the list at €76 million ($85 million), is the only Premier League player in the top 10. This is the first time since Forbes began publishing the ranking in 2005 that the English top flight has failed to place more than one player on it.
The numbers behind the shift
Combined, the four La Liga earners in the top 10 are set to earn €246 million ($276 million) this season. That is 29% of the €839 million ($942 million) that Forbes estimates the top 10 will collect between them, a total slightly down on the €842 million ($945 million) recorded in 2025.
That share grows considerably once Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are taken out of the calculation. This is a reasonable adjustment, as Forbes believes club or league sponsors subsidise part of both players’ contracts at Al Nassr and Inter Miami respectively. Ronaldo, in first place with €267 million ($300 million), and Messi, in second with €129 million ($145 million), account for close to half of the top 10’s earnings on their own. Without them, La Liga’s four players represent €246 million of the remaining €443 million ($497 million), or 56%.
The gap on the pitch is just as wide. Forbes estimates the on-field earnings of the La Liga four, which cover salary, bonuses and, in some cases, club-based image rights agreements, at €162 million ($182 million). Haaland’s on-field figure is €53 million ($60 million).
By league, the Saudi Pro League still tops the list with €315 million ($354 million) across Ronaldo and Sadio Mané, although Ronaldo accounts for the vast majority of that figure. La Liga is second, comfortably ahead of MLS, whose €129 million comes entirely from Messi, and the Premier League’s €76 million. The Bundesliga and Turkey’s Süper Lig have one representative each with Harry Kane at Bayern Munich on €37 million ($42 million) and Mohamed Salah at Trabzonspor on €36 million ($40 million).
How the Premier League lost its place
Salah’s summer move explains much of the change, given that the Egyptian was among the most sought-after free agents in the world when his Liverpool contract expired. He chose Trabzonspor on a two-year deal worth around €17 million ($19 million) a year, plus a 20% royalty on Salah merchandise sold by the club, and his departure removed the Premier League’s second representative from the ranking.
England is well represented on the list, with two English players in the top 10 for the first time since 2018. Bellingham and Kane led the national team to third place at the World Cup this summer, but neither of them plays their club football at home and have instead opted for well-compensated moves abroad.
Haaland’s own position at City carries some uncertainty as well given that his contract runs until 2034, but an independent commission recently found the club guilty of widespread breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules between 2009 and 2018. It remains unclear how severe the punishment will be, and City is expected to appeal.
Lamine Yamal is the youngest player in the top 10 of the ranking.
Getty ImagesLa Liga has the younger stars
Age strengthens the case further with the four La Liga players having an average age of 23.75. The Saudi Pro League’s two representatives are 41 and 34, and both are approaching the end of their careers or their contracts. Ronaldo told Vogue in August that 2026-27 would probably be his last season, and Mané is entering the final year of his deal at Al Nassr.
Mbappé, Haaland and Vinicius, who are all 26 or 27, are the players most likely to succeed Ronaldo and Messi as the global faces of the sport, which places two of the three in Madrid. It also suggests that Yamal, at 19, could end up overtaking all of them.
Real Madrid alone accounts for €197 million ($221 million) of the top 10’s earnings, more than the Premier League and MLS contingents put together. Vinícius signed a new six-year contract in August that keeps him at the Bernabéu until 2032, and has 15 active commercial partners in his portfolio, including Fanatics and Hugo Boss. Bellingham scored seven goals at the World Cup and is under contract until 2029. He is already in talks over an extension that could bring his pay closer to that of his two teammates and is expected to be confirmed soon.
Star striker Mbappé’s figure may also understate his real income given that, in September, he ended a partnership with Nike that was thought to be worth more than €18 million ($20 million) a year and signed with On, the Swiss footwear brand, in a deal that includes equity in the publicly traded company. That stake is not included in his €89 million ($100 million) total, and a similar arrangement with On helped make Roger Federer a billionaire.
Away from the capital and on Spain’s east coast, Yamal’s rise is the fastest on the list. His earnings have climbed from €38 million ($43 million) last year to €49 million ($55 million) this year. Most of the increase is attributed to new sponsorships with Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and American Eagle, which signed him to its first multi-year athlete partnership, as he was named La Liga’s best player for 2025/26 after scoring 16 goals and providing 12 assists for a Barcelona team that won the title, and he then won the World Cup with Spain in July.
This article was originally published on Forbes.com