After both Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo recently signed new contracts at Real Madrid with extremely handsome salaries, we look at the top ten highest-paid players in world football.

There are four Premier League players and the same number from La Liga in this list, with the remaining two coming from the extremely lucrative and fast-growing Chinese league.

According to reports, the best-paid of these footballers receive salaries of close to £365,000 per week, an eye-watering amount which only serves to fuel the belief that footballers earn too much money.

It was only 16 years ago when Roy Keane became the first player to earn more than £50,000 per week, a figure that only slightly surpasses the current average weekly Premier League wage of around £44,000.

Footballer’s salaries have risen inexorably in the past couple of decades and it remains to be seen whether we will see a £1m-per-week player in the not too distant future.