Cristiano Ronaldo turns 36 next month. Somebody should probably tell him.
The Portuguese superstar shows absolutely no signs of slowing down as he enters the twilight of his career.
He’s scored 15 goals in 13 Serie A appearances this season and 19 in 18 in all competitions. Someone of his age shouldn’t be able to perform at the very highest level and still produce those sort of numbers.
At this rate, Ronaldo will be playing at the age of 40.
While his transfer value may have fallen in his advancing years, his value to Juventus hasn’t dipped. Not just his goals but the CR7 brand brings in a ridiculous amount of revenue for Juve.
According to reports, Juve sold 520,000 ‘Ronaldo 7’ shirts within 24 hours of his signing being announced. That earned them more than €60 million - more than half of his €100 million transfer fee.
It’s no wonder the Old Lady are more than willing to continue paying his astronomical wages, then.
And by astronomical, we mean it.
According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, per The Sun, the five-time Ballon d’Or winner pockets £28million-a-year in wages - around £540,000-per-week.
The significance of that is that he earns more in a year than the annual wage bill of FOUR Serie A clubs in the form of Udinese, Hellas Verona, Spezia and Crotone.
That’s a pretty incredible stat.
In terms of other players, Ronaldo earns FOUR times more than the next highest earner in the league.
As we mentioned, Ronaldo earns £28m yearly, with teammate Matthijs de Ligt in second with £7.2m.
You can’t argue that Ronaldo doesn’t deserve it.
Check out Serie A’s top 10 earners below and their yearly wages:
- Cristiano Ronaldo: £28million
- Matthijs de Ligt: £7.2m
- Romelu Lukaku: £6.8m
- Christian Eriksen: £6.8m
- Edin Dzeko: £6.8m
- Paulo Dybala: £6.6m
- Adrien Rabiot: £6.3m
- Aaron Ramsey: £6.3m
- Alexis Sanchez: £6.3m
- Zlatan Ibrahimovic: £6.3m