Thanks to the two Ballon d’Ors and her successes with FC Barcelona, ??Alexia Putellas has become one of the most recognized footballers on the planet. The Catalan midfielder is also the third highest paid player among the more than 700 participating in this World Cup, according to Forbes magazine. With 3.6 million dollars in the last twelve months, she is only surpassed by the Americans Alex Morgan (6.4M) and Megan Rapinoe (6.3M).
The FC Barcelona player was injured last summer at the gates of the Euro Cup in England. Despite not having played for practically the entire year, she lifted her second Ballon d’Or in autumn. Her media coverage has not stopped growing, reaching almost three million followers on Instagram. In November she presented her documentary ‘Alexia: Labor Omnia Vincit’ on Amazon and has a good handful of advertising contracts with brands such as Hublot, Mango, Oakley, Martiderm, Allianz, Visa or Nike, among many others.
His income from advertising is 2.9 million euros, much higher than the little more than 700,000 euros that he earned from his sports activity, counting his salary and other awards for his sports performance, such as winning the Champions League.
The Forbes list includes the 15 highest-paid soccer players in the last twelve months (not counting the earnings from this World Cup) adding up everything earned on and off the pitch. 11 of the 15 are athletes from the United States, clearly the market that dominates world women’s soccer. Only three footballers in addition to Alexia Putellas are among those who have earned the most money in the last year. This is the case of the Norwegian Ada Hegerberg (O. Lyon), the Australian Sam Kerr (Chelsea) and the English Chloe Kelly (M. City), all of them tied for eleventh position with 1.1 million euros in earnings.
The hegemony of the United States is total. Up to six of its internationals have won more than one million euros in advertising and sponsorships, something that is only within the reach of Alexia Putellas (2.9M). Behind the blaugrana is one of soccer’s rising stars, Trinity Rodman. The daughter of the Chicago Bulls legend earned 2 million euros in the last year (1.3M in advertising and 700,000 for her work in the field). Also among the highest paid is Sophia Smith, who at 22 is called to be one of the revelations of the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. The NWSL player added earnings of 1.8 million euros in the last 12 months.
In addition, the salary system in this country places them in a position of advantage over the rest. The internationals receive most of their salary from US Soccer, the American federation, from which they also receive substantial bonuses for their performance. Thanks to the historic agreement reached in 2022, which guarantees equal pay, all soccer players receive the same amounts as the men’s team and the prizes are also shared equally among all. Thus, the women’s team shared 5.8 million euros for the round of 16 reached by the men’s team in the last World Cup in Qatar, more than what the women’s team earned for winning the 2015 and 2019 World Cups together.
With the desire to equalize the economic prizes in 2027, FIFA has increased the amount that it will allocate to the national teams from 30 million to 110 million in this World Cup. This has allowed each footballer who participates in the tournament to receive, directly, about 28,000 euros, an amount that in many cases will exceed what they receive in their clubs throughout the year. In addition, the 23 members of the winning team on August 20 in Sydney will receive about 250,000 euros each.
