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News
- 6 hours ago
Overpaid and Unsellable: the WORST contracts in football right now
Analysis
Some players have contracts that are so large, teams can't sell them.
When signing a player, sometimes the buying team loses all sense of perspective and gives in to every one of the player's demands.
Now, if the player ends up being a roaring success then it's likely we never hear about these demands as the club happily eats the excess salary as a consequence of excellence.
STATS
Mohamed Salah
F (CR), M (R)
Liverpool
Mohamed Salah
F (CR), M (R)
Liverpool
A good example of this is Liverpool giving Mohamed Salah all the money he asked for because he's that damn good. You won't catch the Reds whining about Salah being overpaid.
But if the player underperforms, their wages become a serious issue. And we don't mean from a fan perspective where they castigate footballers for earning what they do, but from a club perspective.
A highly paid but underperforming player is a drain on all the club's resources, and worse, the wages often make it impossible to sell them because the players quite rightfully want to continue earning the massive amounts of money they were guaranteed in their contract.
Who are the most overpaid outcasts from around the game today? FootballTransfers has the answer.
All salary figures are net (i.e. after tax) to ease comparison across differing countries with differing tax laws.
To reiterate: this is not a condemnation of players for asking for these wages, nor is there any implication they should take less money to leave their clubs.
Jadon Sancho
Club: Man Utd
Salary: €7.1 million per year
Contract expires: 2026
Sancho looked like one of the best wingers in the world at Borussia Dortmund but a move to England has been a disaster for him. Is it the player's fault? Erik ten Hag's? Did Cristiano Ronaldo's arrival dismantle the project Sancho was joining?
It's probably a bit of everything, really, and the result is Sancho stuck in no man's land. His Chelsea loan was okay, but they couldn't agree terms on a deal because Sancho is earning so much damn money and they felt he wasn't worth it.
Raheem Sterling
Club: Chelsea
Salary: €9.3 million per year
Contract expires: 2027
Raheem Sterling headed back to London with a bag full of Premier League winners medals and a big fat contract. However, when removed from the Pep Guardiola system that allowed him to farm simple finishes, Sterling has looked a shadow of the player we had all become accustomed to him being.
Chelsea tried loaning him to Arsenal to bolster his image but that move somehow made him even worse. Given the winger left City to, in part, move back to London, it's difficult to see what Chelsea can even do here. What London club has the financial power to even split Sterling's massive wages with Chelsea?
Spurs?
STATS
Raheem Sterling
F, AM (R), M (L)
Arsenal
Raheem Sterling
F, AM (R), M (L)
Arsenal
Marcus Rashford
Club: Man Utd
Salary: €8.5 million per year
Contract expires: 2028
The absolue tragedy of Marcus Rashford's decline is made all the sadder because the enormous contract he's on basically prevents him from moving on as he wishes.
Even his dream move to Barcelona isn't likely to happen as the Blaugrana have no intention of matching the obscene wages he's on at United, so a wage cut will have to happen on top of the transfer, and those are always super awkward.
Jack Grealish
Club: Man City
Salary: €8.5 million per year
Contract expires: 2027
Jack Grealish was amazing the year Man City won the Treble and has basically been partying ever since, constantly looking dishevelled and ineffective.
He cost City over €100 million in transfer fees and is earning wages so obscenely high there is almost no club he could actually join. Nobody is matching that salary.
STATS
Jadon Sancho
M (RL), AM (L)
Chelsea
Jadon Sancho
M (RL), AM (L)
Chelsea
Casemiro
Club: Man Utd
Salary: €10 million per year
Contract expires: 2026
Casemiro joined Man Utd in a powerful short-term move to help the club win trophies. Turns out he's way more physically declined than expected, and he's earning so much damn money they can't even get Saudi Pro League clubs to buy him!
John Stones
Club: Man City
Salary: €7.1 million per year
Contract expires: 2026
John Stones will go down as a truly polarising figure for Man City. He was sensational when fit and contributed massively to their success, but he was injured so damn much.
Now with his contract winding down and his place in the squad gone, his wages are still so high that no mid-table club (i.e. Everton) would be willing to move for him.
Gabriel Jesus
Club: Arsenal
Salary: €7.5 million per year
Contract expires: 2027
When Arsenal first signed Gabriel Jesus they expected he would bring his title-winning experience from Man City and guide Arsenal to glory.
Now, that hasn't happened. And worse he's second-choice up-front behind Kai Havertz and is probably about to be third choice if Arsenal get their striker of choice.
Suddenly his big wages are going to become a problem.
Dusan Vlahovic
Club: Juventus
Salary: €10.5 million per year
Contract expires: 2026
It is incomprehensible how Dusan Vlahovic's agent convinced Juventus to pay his client €10.5 million a season based on four months of (admittedly world-class) form with Fiorentina. Suffice to say, it hasn't worked out, and now they have an underperforming striker getting paid more than pretty much anyone else in the league.
Ouch.
STATS
Dušan Vlahović
F (C)
Juventus
Dušan Vlahović
F (C)
Juventus
David Alaba
Club: Real Madrid
Salary: €10.8 million per year
Contract expires: 2026
For the most part, if you are a club legend and Bayern Munich are happy for you to leave, then there's likely something physically wrong with you (see also: Thiago Alcantara).
David Alaba joined Real Madrid and has basically never been fit since then. Troubled by injuries large and small, Alaba's colossal wages mean there's zero chance of Madrid moving him on before his deal expires.
Milan Skriniar
Club: PSG
Salary: €9 million per year
Contract expires: 2028
PSG thought they were being clever by picking up Milan Skriniar for free but it turns out the Slovak centre-back wasn't a great fit in Paris much less with the system of play instituted by Luis Enrique (who arrived the same month as Skriniar).
The Slovak has thus found himself out of the team and has spent 2025 on loan with Fenerbahce. Skriniar's contract is so colossal and so long, however, that PSG are going to have to live with their poor scouting for a good few years yet.
Current ETV
Milan Škriniar
D (C)
Fenerbahce
Milan Škriniar
D (C)
Fenerbahce
ETV Range
€13.8M - €16.8M
Serge Gnabry
Club: Bayern Munich
Salary: €10 million per year
Contract expires: 2026
Every great player runs their course with a team and Serge Gnabry at Bayern Munich is no exception. A quality player in his day, Gnabry is out of favour now and mostly features as a sub.
This is only an issue because his wages are enormous (he earns much more than current superstar Michael Olise) so Bayern just have to live with him being an overpaid supersub because trust that nobody is matching €10 million a year for him.
Marco Asensio
Club: PSG
Salary: €8 million per year
Contract expires: 2026
PSG signed Marco Asensio thinking he could bring Champions League winning savvy to PSG. That was a stupid idea and has quite predictably created a situation where they're paying a Real Madrid squad guy like a Real Madrid starter guy. Good job they have infinite money, eh?
Kingsley Coman
Club: Bayern Munich
Salary: €9 million per year
Contract expires: 2027
Like Serge Gnabry, Kingsley Coman is a winger who has seen his best days. Unlike Gnabry (and the similarly overpaid Sane, whose contract expires in 25 days) though, Coman has two years to run. Bayern will try to shift him, but nobody is going to match those wages.
Lucas Hernandez
Club: PSG
Salary: €7.2 million per year
Contract expires: 2028
PSG signing Lucas Hernandez made all the sense in the world but for one reason or another it simply hasn't worked out. That should be fine, but his wages will probably prevent him from finding another club so he may become an eternal back-up in Paris.
Current ETV
Lucas Hernández
D (CL)
PSG
Lucas Hernández
D (CL)
PSG
ETV Range
€29.4M - €35.9M
Frenkie de Jong
Club: Barcelona
Salary: €9.1 million per year
Contract expires: 2026
The above examples are all pretty gloomy in terms of the forecasted future for these players, but it doesn't have to be that way! Frenkie de Jong's monster contract (thanks to Josep Bartomeu's fiscal malfeasance) made him a real issue for Barcelona for years.
Barcelona tried to sell Frenkie, but of course he didn't want to leave his dream club getting paid more than midfielder on earth. Barcelona tried every trick in the book, some rather nasty, but Frenkie (aided by then head coach Xavi) dug in his heels.
Now, under Hansi Flick, Frenkie is playing perhaps as well as he ever has in a Barcelona shirt. The Dutchman is one of the club captains and they're talking about a contract renewal to give him more years while also bringing that astronomical salary down.
If you play well enough, if your football is good enough, then within reason it really doesn't matter what you cost. The ultimate solution for every player listed here is to be like Frenkie: play better. Everyone will forgive you if you just play better.
(All salary figures taken from Capology)
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