Belgian footballers are the most valued in the world, earning higher salaries on average than those of any other nationality within Europe’s ‘Big Five’ leagues, a report will reveal this week.
The average wage of Belgians across the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga and Ligue 1 has been calculated at £2.2million per player per year, or £41,700 per week.
Players from Montenegro and Australia earn almost as much but there are just a handful of those in the elite divisions and the high pay packets of the Belgians are more significant.
English players earn on average £2.1m a year (£40,400 per week) in Europe’s ‘Big 5’ leagues, with the figure so high because most of them play in the Premier League, the richest division in global football.
Dutch players (£2m a year on average) are also among the highest earners as are Nigerians (£1.9m), Japanese (£1.8m) and Brazilians (£1.77m).
It is no surprise that Belgium’s most stellar names, who play for the biggest clubs, are earning big money — from the new Footballer of the Year Eden Hazard and his goalkeeper club-mate Thibaut Courtois at Chelsea to Manchester City’s captain Vincent Kompany, Manchester United’s Marouane Fellaini and Adnan Januzaj, and Everton’s Romelu Lukaku.
But new research to be published in the 2015 edition of Sportingintelligence’s global sports salaries survey points to the financial rewards being heaped upon Belgium’s golden generation.
They range from Atletico Madrid defender Toby Alderweireld, on loan at Southampton, to midfielder Kevin de Bruyne at Wolfsburg in Germany, Radja Nainggolan and Dries Mertens, respectively at Roma and Napoli in Italy.
The lowest-paid players by nationality are those from Israel (£425,000 per year on average), Paraguay (£676,000), Guinea (£729,000), Senegal (£816,000) and Morocco (£881,000).
Spain had the best paid team at last summer’s World Cup in Brazil, with their 23-man squad earning £4.1m a year on average.
