Kathmandu. This year’s billionaire players will be playing in the FIFA World Cup for the first time. <\/p>\n
Forbes has released a list of the richest players participating in the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Cristiano Ronaldo is at the top of the list, while Argentina captain Lionel Messi is at number two. <\/p>\n
Ronaldo and Messi both have a combined net worth of more than $1 billion. According to Forbes, the top 11 players in the World Cup have earned a total of $ 950 million in the first 12 months of the tournament. <\/p>\n
The FIFA World Cup will be hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico from June 11 to July 19. A total of 48 teams will take part in the tournament and 104 matches will be played. <\/p>\n
Cristiano Ronaldo, 41, is currently the world’s most expensive player. Last year, his net worth was $430 million. Of this, $235 million came from his on-field income (salary and bonus). While $65 million came from support and other business ventures. <\/p>\n
Cristiano Ronaldo is one of only 4 active players in the world who plays for Saudi Arabia’s Al-Nassr. Its net worth is more than $ 1 billion. His annual income equals the record of boxing legend Floyd Mayweather Jr. This is considered to be the highest annual earnings by a player in the history of Forbes. <\/p>\n
Cristiano Ronaldo is playing his sixth World Cup. He recently led Al-Nassr to the Saudi Pro League title. <\/p>\n
Lionel Messi is the second highest scorer in the world this time. Messi, who led Argentina to the last World Cup, is second on the list. Messi has earned $ 140 million in the last 12 months. <\/p>\n
Specifically, Messi’s earnings on and off the field (advertising and merchandising) are split equally between $70 million each. <\/p>\n
Messi, who plays for Inter Miami, has recently joined the Forbes Billionaires list. His net worth is estimated at $1.1 billion. Like Ronaldo, this will be Messi’s sixth World Cup. <\/p>\n
If Messi scores four more goals in this tournament, he will overtake Germany’s Miroslav Klose (16 goals) as the most successful goal scorer in World Cup history. <\/p>\n
France forward Kylian Mbappe is third in the list. These Real Madrid players earn $ 95 million. Mbappe is one of the biggest brands in the world of football and has recently made a lot of new investments. <\/p>\n
Norwegian striker Erling Haaland, who signed a major deal with Manchester City, is fourth with earnings of $80 million. <\/p>\n
Brazil’s Vinicius Jr. is in fifth place with earnings of $ 60 million. <\/p>\n
The biggest surprise on this list is 18-year-old Spanish sensation Lamin Yamal. Yamal earned an astonishing $43 million last year and is ninth on the list. His astonishing earnings at such a young age reflect his growing dominance in the football market. <\/p>\n
Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah is sixth with $55 million, Senegal’s Sadio Mane is seventh with a net worth of $54 million and England’s Jude Bellingham is eighth with a net worth of $44 million. <\/p>\n
England captain Harry Kane is in 10th place with earnings of $41 million, while Brazil’s Neymar is 11th with earnings of $38 million. <\/p>\n
How does Forbes determine the earnings of athletes? <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The Forbes list includes players’ salaries, bonuses, image and endorsements over the past 12 months. However, this does not include returns from players’ personal investments, taxes, transfer fees or commissions paid to agents. This ranking clearly shows that today’s top footballers have become global brands, not just sportsmen. \u2013Agency<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kathmandu. This year’s billionaire players will be playing in the FIFA World Cup for the first time. Forbes has released a list of the richest players participating in the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Cristiano Ronaldo is at the top of the list, while Argentina captain Lionel Messi is at number two. Ronaldo and Messi both […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":302964,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45044,45159],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-302965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news-en","category-news-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302965"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":302966,"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302965\/revisions\/302966"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/media\/302964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}