These days, barely a day goes by without the finer details of some of world football’s most recognisable stars’ wage packets being splashed across the papers.
Thanks to the book Football Leaks: The Dirty Business of Football, which came out on Thursday, there’s not much chance of this recent trend going away any time soon, either.
On Friday, the Daily Mail featured another batch of extracts from the book. As well as sharing details of the £1m good behaviour bonus clause in Mario Balotelli’s Liverpool contract, Bastian Schweinsteiger’s Manchester United wages are also featured.
Signed from Bayern Munich by Louis van Gaal a year before Jose Mourinho arrived at Old Trafford, the World Cup winner hardly featured for United this season before eventually completing a move to Chicago Fire in Major League Soccer.
According to the leak, the German midfielder was on a deal worth £7.55m a year in Manchester, earning a total of £12.53m. Of course, it’s hardly breaking news that footballers of Schweinsteiger’s stature earn a shit load of money, but taking account of the fact he played 2,101 minutes for the club, this means United forked out £5,963 to him for every 60 seconds he was on the pitch for them.
Not bad going at all.
While Schweinsteiger didn’t see much action for United towards the end of his stay with the club, it should be pointed out that he would have made more at the club if he’d chosen to stay until the end of the season. After sealing his switch to Chicago, it was reported that his wage in America is around £3.6m a year – not exactly bad for an injury-prone player the wrong side of 30, but less than half what he was earning in Manchester.
