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Salaries at Liverpool put the club among the world’s sporting elite financially, a new survey has confirmed.

First team players at Anfield take home an average of £57,000 per week or a shade over £3m a year (£3.01m) according to the latest analysis from the global sports salary survey (GSSS) by sportingintelligence.com.

The ECHO understands the highest earners at Anfield include Daniel Sturridge who takes home around £150,000 per week while club captain Jordan Henderson and James Milner also earn well over £100,000 a week.

Those wages place the club as the tenth biggest club in the world for wages in football - but still only the fifth highest paid even within the Premier League itself.

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Just 30-odd miles down the road and Manchester United are now paying the highest wages in world football after their summer acquisitions of Paul Pogba and Zlatan Ibrahimovic were added to highly-paid incumbents like Wayne Rooney.

United’s squad earns an average of £5.77 million a year, equivalent to £110,000 a week, almost double that at Anfield.

Liverpool are also behind Manchester City (third at £5.42m/£104,000 per week), Chelsea (fifth at £4.51m/£86,000 per week) and Arsenal (ninth at £3.70m/£71,000 per week) in wages paid.

Everton pay an average of £41,000 per week which places them 15th in the global league of payers in football.

Apart from the Premier League teams the top ten is filled out by the continental giants of Barcelona, Real Madrid, Paris St Germain, Bayern Munich and Juventus.

The survey considers the pay of almost 10,000 sportsmen at 333 teams in seven sports across 17 of the world’s richest leagues.

WAGES PAID IN WORLD FOOTBALL

1. Manchester United - £5.77m/£110K pw

2. Barcelona - £5.65/£108k pw

3. Manchester City - £5.42/£104k pw

4. Real Madrid - £5.05m/£97k pw

5. Chelsea - £4.51m/£86k pw

6. Paris St Germain - £4.47m/£86k pw

7. Bayern Munich - £4.16m/£80k pw

8. Juventus - £3.97m/£76k pw

9. Arsenal - £3.7m/£71k pw

10. LIVERPOOL - £3.01m/£57k pw

The Premier League’s huge TV revenues continue to make it the best paid football league in the world with players earning an average of £2.44m per year, almost double Spain’s La Liga at £1.24m.

In Italian Serie A (£1.10m) and Germany’s Bundesliga (£1.04m) the players can still expect to earn more than £1m a year salary as a first team player.

GSSS suggests that taking all sports into consideration, the highest paid sports stars in the world belong in America’s NBA basketball league with salaries averaging an astonishing £4.8m a year thanks to a huge new broadcasting rights deal and with the dollar’s strength against the pound giving their wages extra weight.

The Cleveland Caviliers - winners of the NBA Finals - jumped to the top of the world pay league, their stars earning an average of £6.54m a year with baseball's New York Yankees coming in second at £5.81m.

Basketball’s LA Clippers rounded out the top three at £5.78m per year before Manchester United take the fourth spot with their £5.77 average.

Old Trafford features three of the highest paid footballers in the world with Pogba in fifth (£290,000 per week), Wayne Rooney in eighth (£260,000 per week) and Ibrahimovic in tenth (£250,000 per week).

Manchester City also have three in the top 20 in Sergio Aguero, Yaya Toure and Kevin De Bruyne though none makes the top ten where astonishingly Graziano Pelle is the world’s sixth best paid player thanks to his contract at China’s Shangdong Luneng where he earns £273,000 per week.

The rise in China is seen by the fact that five of the best 14 players in the world now play in that country.

As well as Pelle, Hulk, Ezequiel Lavezzi, Ramires and Jackson Martinez are all identified by GSSS, whose results are published in today’s Mail on Sunday.