Balotelli picked up seven yellow cards for Liverpool but he was never sent off.PHOTO/courtesy
LONDON, United Kingdom, May 12 – Mario Balotelli, Carlos Tevez and Bastian Schweinsteiger are the latest players to have their huge salaries revealed in the book Football Leaks: The Dirty Business of Football.
Sportsmail’s publication of extracts from the book, which came out on Thursday, has prompted a FIFA probe into Paul Pogba’s deal to Manchester United.
READ: Balotelli earned £1m Liverpool bonus for not seeing red three times in a season
MARIO BALOTELLI
Liverpool’s £16million signing of Mario Balotelli from AC Milan included a behaviour bonus.PHOTO/Daily Mail
Bonus payments usually relate to winning trophies and appearance targets but Balotelli’s Liverpool deal included a Sh133m (£1m) bonus clause for not getting sent off three times in a season.
It read: ‘If during each season of the term of this contract the player is not dismissed from the field of play on three or more occasions for violent conduct, spitting, for using offensive, insulting or abusive language and/or gestures and/or for dissent … then on the June 30 at the end of each season he shall receive a bonus payment of Sh1333m (£1m).’
CARLOS TEVEZ
Carlos Tevez earns a basic annual wage of £17.16m a year after tax with Shanghai Shenhua.PHOTO/Daily Mail
Tevez broke the Sh26.6m ( £200,000)-a-week barrier in the Premier League when he joined Manchester City in 2009 — but that figure pales into insignificance compared to the striker’s basic annual wage of Sh2.3b (£17.16m) a year after tax with Shanghai Shenhua — the equivalent of Sh84.4m ( £634,615)-a-week gross.
But Tevez has the potential to add much more with bonuses that include: Sh104.8m (£788,000) if he starts 70 per cent of games; Sh199.5m (£1.56m) if his side win the Asian Champions League; Sh104.8m (£788,000) if they are champions; Sh51.9m (£390,000) if they win the cup and Sh Sh51.9m (£390,000) if he is top scorer.
Of the other former Premier League stars to play in China, Didier Drogba was paid Sh67.5m (£507,692) a week at Shanghai Shenhua while Oscar earns Sh72.9m (£548,000) a week at Shanghai SIPG.
But Tevez is not the best-paid player in the world. That honours falls to fellow Argentine Ezequiel Lavezzi at Hebei China Fortune on Sh106.2m (£798,000) a week.
BASTIAN SCHWEINSTEIGER
Manchester United’s Bastian Schweinsteiger joined the club last season, under former manager Louis van Gaal but the German international has fallen out of favour under new boss Jose Mourinho
If you wondered why Schweinsteiger was tweeting cheery pictures of himself and wishing United well when he had been frozen out by Jose Mourinho, his contract offers a clue.
Criticism of the manager invoked automatic fines of two weeks’ wages — and the German was on Sh997.6m (£7.55m) a year. In total, Schweinsteiger played 2,101 minutes at United, earning a salary of Sh1.7b (£12.53m) or Sh793,230.91 (£5,963) a minute.
ADIDAS
Man of the match, Manchester United’s Spanish goalkeeper David de Gea leaves the pitch at the final whistle in the English Premier League football match between Manchester United and Liverpool at Old Trafford in Manchester, north west England, on December 14, 2014. Manchester United won the game 3-0. AFP PHOTO / OLI SCARFF
The book reveals how lucrative boot deals have become. David de Gea’s image rights company, Bedamarse Ltd, gets Sh55.9m (£420,000 a year from adidas.
His United team-mate Juan Mata had Sh71.2m (£535,000) paid to his company, Depormata 88 in 2015-16.
By comparison, Lionel Messi’s tax trial in Barcelona revealed that between 2007-2009 he received Sh452.2m (£3.4m) from adidas, paid into two separate companies, Jenbril in Uruguay and Sports Consultants in Belize.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino and FA chairman Greg Clarke on Thursday said that transfer deals need more transparency and have called for a debate over whether changes to the system are required.
-By Daily Mail-
