Soccer players domestic and abroad earning $800,000 or more amounted to 37 in totalAFL trumped by soccer in football code pay stakes
SOCCER has thundered past Australian Rules as the nation’s most lucrative football code.
A Herald Sun investigation has revealed 23 Australian soccer players based in the A-league or overseas earn more than the AFL’s highest-paid stars Lance Franklin, Gary Ablett and Tom Boyd.
It comes as AFL players are locked in a bitter pay dispute with league chiefs over a demand for a fixed percentage of the game’s rising revenues.
The AFL’s $1 million men are Franklin, Ablett, Boyd, Nic Naitanui and Scott Pendlebury.
Superstars Patrick Dangerfield ($800,000), Nat Fyfe ($900,000), Joel Selwood ($850,000) and Alex Rance ($800,000) all fell short of the $1 million mark in 2016.
But Australian soccer’s top dogs earns five times more cash — China-based defenders Trent Sainsbury, 24, and Matthew Spiranovic, 28, both earn more than $5 million a year.
Sydney superstar is earning $1 million-plus a year, but that is nothing compared to what some Australian soccer players are collecting. Picture: David Caird
Melbourne City’s Tim Cahill will collect $4.7 million in his debut A-League season, former City star Aaron Mooy pockets $3.5 million a year on loan to Huddersfield Town in the English second tier from Manchester City.
Other big round-ball earners were Socceroos captain Mile Jedinak ($3.2 million, Aston Villa), Matthew Spiranovic ($2.5 million, Hangzhou Greentown) and Mat Ryan ($2.4 million, Valencia).
Former Manchester United and Chelsea star Mark Bosnich, who was earning almost $8 million a year in his prime, said soccer would always dominate.
“No disrespect to AFL, but they’re catering to a small domestic market, football is part of a world market,” he said.
“But AFL players should be getting a bigger slice of the pie. They get less than their soccer counterparts and there needs to be a realisation that people come to watch the players and not the guys upstairs.”
AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan made $1.7 million in 2015, while A-League boss David Gallop was on $1.4m.
While the AFL has nine players on $800,000 to $950,000, another 12 to 15 Australian soccer players earn between $800,000 and $1.1 million.
The AFL has 850 players at an average of $300,000.
More than 160 Australian players are now playing in Europe and Asia, while there are 260 on A-League lists.
The A-League average wage is $180,000, a $145,000 rise from the last season of the NSL 12 years ago.
The advent of the A-League, the emergence of the lucrative Chinese market and the much-improved Socceroos pay conditions — players average $100,000 a year representing Australia and as much as $200,000 in a World Cup year — has seen soccer wages surge past AFL.
A-League stars will also strike an improved pay deal, with the FFA renegotiating the $40m-a-year TV contract, which expires in May.
The most common pay band for AFL stars is $100,000 to $200,000, which included 188 players in 2015, while 153 earned between $200,000 to $300,000.
Nobody earned more than $1m a year when the contract was averaged out.
The most recent AFL figures showed two players earned $1.2m in 2015, with some contracts being heavily back-ended or front-ended.
TOP AFL EARNERS 2016
Lance Franklin $1 million+
Tom Boyd $1 million+
Gary Ablett $1 million
Nic Naitanui $1 million
Scott Pendlebury $1 million
Jeremy Cameron $950,000
Nat Fyfe $900,000
Joel Selwood $850,000
Kurt Tippett $850,000
Patrick Dangerfield $800,000
Alex Rance $800,000
Dayne Beams $800,000
Jobe Watson $800,000
Travis Cloke $800,000
TOP AUSSIE SOCCER EARNERS 2016
1. Trent Sainsbury — Jiangsu (China) $5.2m
2. Matthew Spiranovic — Huangzhou (China) $5m
3. Tim Cahill — Melbourne City (Australia) $4.6m
4. Aaron Mooy — Huddersfield Town, loan (England) $3.5m
5. Mile Jedinak — Aston Villa (England) $3.2m
6. Mat Ryan — Valencia (Spain) $2.4m
7. Mitch Langerak — Stuttgart (Germany) $2.3m
8. Robbie Kruse — Bayer Leverkusen (Germany) $2.2m
9. Mark Milligan — Baniyas (UAE) $2.1m
10. Tom Rogic — Celtic (Scotland) $2m
11. Ryan McGowan — Henan Jianye (China) $2m
12. Mathew Leckie — Ingolstadt (Germany) $2m
13. Nathan Burns — FC Tokyo (Japan) $2m
14. Ersan Gulum — Hebei China Fortune (China) $1.9m
15. Apostolos Giannou — Guangzhou R&F (China) $1.9m
16. Massimo Luongo — QPR (England) $1.7m
17. Brad Smith — Bournemouth (England) $1.6m
18. Bailey Wright — Preston North End (England) $1.4m
19. Dario Vidosic — Liaoning Huongyun (China) $1.3m
20. Adam Federici — Bournemouth (England) $1.25m
21. Jason Davidson — Groningen, loan (Netherlands) $1.25m
22. Curtis Good — Newcastle United (England) $1.25m
23. Michael Thwaite — Liaoning Whowin (China) $1.25m
24. Aziz Behich — Bursaspor (Turkey) $1.2m
25. Nikolai Topor-Stanley — Hatta Club (UAE) $1.2m
* Salaries are based on official AFL and A-League figures and industry estimates
^ Some deals include accommodation/relocation and bonuses
as usual, if you dream of being a millionaire, play the world game
if you dream of being broke bum, then there's the rest
liar extraordinaire 
