Mbappe and Vini Jr edge Haaland as Europe’s best-paid players revealed

Robin Bairner

• Updated: 2 Apr 2026 09:24 BST
• 5 min read

News

Real Madrid attackers Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Junior are the best paid players in Europe’s Big 5 leagues, according to an extensive report, but there’s not yet any space in this bracket for Barcelona sensation Lamine Yamal.

French paper L’Equipe releases an annual report of the footballers on the highest salaries across the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, the Bundesliga and Ligue 1, with this edition showing the Real Madrid duo just edging out Manchester City’s Erling Haaland into third place.

The top of the list is surprisingly not dominated by the English top-flight, with the City striker the only Premier League player to break the top five.

Who is the best-paid player in Europe?

Mbappe and Vinicius Jr are each said to claim a monthly salary of €2.67 million, making them the biggest earners in European football, according to this source. This implies that the pair each earn €32m per year.

Haaland is just a little way back on €2.63m followed by Bayern Munich duo Harry Kane and Jamal Musiala each picking up €2.1m.

The only other player to earn €2m or more per month is Liverpool attacker Mohamed Salah, who is set to leave Anfield in the summer.

Indeed, the top of the list is dominated by veteran stars. The likes of Real Madrid’s David Alaba (€1.88m), Man Utd’s Casemiro, Liverpool’s Virgil van Dijk, Bayern’s Manuel Neuer (all €1.75m) and Barcelona’s Robert Lewandowski (€1.73m) all follow.

Rounding out the top 10 are Real Madrid goalkeeper Jude Bellingham and Atletico Madrid goalkeeper Jan Oblak on €1.67m.

Why Mbappe is really No.1

Mbappe and Vini Jr may be tied for top spot, but this is set to evolve next season. When the Brazil international signed his contract with Real Madrid in 2023, he agreed a deal that saw his earnings leap by around €2m each season.

This means that in terms of raw salary, Vini Jr will be paid more than Mbappe next term if his contract terms do not change.

Of course, there is no guarantee in that given that he is in talks over a new deal that will see him reach parity with his club-mate.

While the pair technically have the same salary at present, Mbappe is Real Madrid’s best-paid player due to the bonuses that are included in his contract. This will still be the case next season, even when Vini's pay rise is taken into account.

Mbappe has been graced with these large bonuses because Real Madrid did not need to pay a transfer fee when he arrived as a free agent from PSG in the summer of 2024, and this agreement is in place of this.

Who misses out?

There are some notable absentees on the list of top-paid players. For example, Ballon d’Or laureate Ousmane Dembele earns €1.5m per month at PSG, making him the Champions League winners’ top earner by some distance.

Dembele, who is in a contract dispute with the Parc des Princes side currently, earns on a par with Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka and Bruno Fernandes at Manchester United.

The France international beat out Barcelona sensation Lamine Yamal into second in the Ballon d’Or voting, and the 18-year-old, who is the most valuable player in the world, also missed out on a top 10 spot.

Lamine’s salary of €1.33m a month is inferior to many players at Barcelona and Real Madrid, but he has the possibility of adding around €10m per year to that figure, according to L’Equipe sources.

His contract is heavily weighted towards bonus payments for objectives such as winning the Ballon d’Or. There are other, more straightforward, targets, too. These include scoring goals, playing matches and winning trophies.

When it comes time to negotiate his next deal – his current contract expires in 2031 - Lamine is likely to have even more leverage when it comes to driving his base salary up to match the likes of Mbappe and Vini Jr to lift himself into this elite earning bracket.

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