New football wages survey finds out that Lionel Messi is stinking, stinking rich

It's not exactly coming as a surprise to us, but it seems that Lionel Messi is a little bit rich.

A new survey of footballers wages by France Football shows that the Barcelona star is the highest paid footballer in the world, bringing in an estimated whopping €65m between his wages at the club, and other endorsement deals. With a basic (there's nothing basic about it) wage of around €35m, Messi can add in deals with Adidas, Turkish Airlines and EA Sports to bring his earnings up to around €65m. It means that he's raking in around €5m every month, or €1.25m a week, or €178,000 a day. Good lord. But whenever Messi's name appears in a list, you can bet your bottom dollar that Cristiano Ronaldo isn't far behind, and the Real star is second in the list, raking in €54m a year between his club wages and other sponsorship deals, leaving him with a cool million and change to spend every single week. That's a lot of hair gel and earrings, although he probably gets those for free as well, the jammy so and so. It's an all-La Liga top three, with Neymar's paltry, measly €36.5m a year in third place. The highest earning Premier League player is Robin Van Persie, picking up around €25.5m a year, while Wayne Rooney is just behind him, with a routine €22.5m heading into his bank account every 12 months. As for managers, Chelsea's Jose Mourinho is cleaning up on his Special One image, with around €18m in earnings each year, Arsene Wener gets around €11.2m, and the cost of employing a man whose first instinct is to lump long balls in the direction of Marouane Fellaini is €10m a year. Let that one sink in. Also nice to see David Moyes has landed on his feet. He's among the top 10 highest paid managers, taking in a nice €7m a year with Real Sociedad. Andy Tate won't be happy. H-t The Mirror