Over the past three decades, the winners of globalization have seen their income boom. Ronaldo’s image rights are worth more than a billion dollars because his brand is particularly valuable to a company like Nike with a worldwide customer base. But the tax rates of these winners, instead of rising, have fallen dramatically. From 1930 to 1980, the top marginal income tax rate in the United States averaged 78 percent; today it’s 37 percent . Instead of redistributing the gains from globalization, the tax system has concentrated them into just a few hands. This path is unlikely to be sustainable, economically or politically.

But we can fix this.

We’re often told that taxing the most successful among us is impossible or counterproductive. But in fact, professional sports often shows how misguided this argument is.

For one, governments could drastically curb tax evasion by increasing the sanctions against the intermediaries that facilitate it. It’s unlikely that longer prison time or bigger fines would have deterred Ronaldo or Messi. But revoking the licenses of the banks found helping tax dodgers and imposing sanctions against tax havens would cause the supply of tax evasion services to shrink.

Once tax evasion was curbed, governments could tax top incomes at higher rates, for the greater good. And don’t believe anyone who says this would harm the economy — these claims usually don’t make much sense. Look no further than Ronaldo: His image would still be as valuable to Nike if he had to pay more in taxes, and it does not cost him much to provide it — so nothing bad would happen if he had to pay more. With a lower after-tax income, he would still score as many goals. You don’t hurt anyone when you tax the Ronaldos of the world — you just make it possible for everyone to gain when they do.

The United States isn’t typically known for its redistributive tax policies nowadays, but even Americans still understand this basic truth: Sky-high incomes for star athletes are socially useless. That’s why American sport leagues have either salary caps (as in the N.F.L.) or luxury taxes (as in the N.B.A.) that severely limit how much teams can spend on players.

There is no such thing in European sports: Countries lure the best players by offering them sweet tax deals, and clubs from the Union of European Football Associations recycle billions of dollars from Russian oligarchs, with no spending limit (except for how much debt they can accumulate). So while inequality has increased less in Europe overall than in the United States, when it comes to professional sports it’s the opposite.