The Forbes magazine recently released thelist of the world’s highest-paid celebrities and Lionel Messi finished fourth, also to become the world’s highest-earning athlete. Cristiano Ronaldo who finished sixth, has been named the world’s second-best athlete in terms of earnings.
Over the past twelve months, Messi took home a whopping £101million in pre-tax earnings, ranking him fourth overall behind Taylor Swift (£148million), Kylie Jenner (£136million) and Kanye West (£120milllion). The Barcelona star earns an annual salary of £64million at the Camp Nou and also has a lifetime contract with Adidas, earns him around £9.5million annually.
The remaining £27.5million comes from the many other endorsement contracts that the Argentine legend has signed over the years.
Cristiano Ronaldo, who finished as the second-best athlete and sixth overall in the list as mentioned above, earned a total of £86.5million in the past twelve months – just behind Ed Sheeran (£87million).
The Portuguese legend earns an annual salary of £51million at Juventus while the remaining £25.5million comes from various endorsements including a lifetime contract with Nike.
The third-best athlete in the list is also a footballer – Paris Saint Germain (PSG)’s and Brazil’s Neymar Jr who earned £83.5million in the last year, to finish seventh in the overall list just behind Cristiano Ronaldo. £56million of his earnings comes from his annual salary with PSG and the remaining comes from endorsements.
It is also worth noting that no other footballer featured in the Forbes Top-100 list.
Forbes’ top-10 highest-paid athletes 2019

Lionel Messi (£101m)
Cristiano Ronaldo (£86.5m)
Neymar (£83.5m)
Canelo Alvarez (£75m)
Roger Federer (£74.5m)
Russell Wilson (£71.4m)
Aaron Rogers (£71.2m)
LeBron James (£71m)
Steph Curry (£63.7m)
Kevin Durant (£52.1m)
Roger Federer admits clashes with Novak Djokovic can be “brutal” for the loser given how well matched the two players are, but he is relishing Sunday’s Wimbledon final.
Eight-time All England Club champion Federer’s reward for a thrilling four-set victory over Rafael Nadal in the semi-finals is a meeting with another fellow great in Djokovic, who defeated Roberto Bautista Agut.
The two are certainly no strangers to one another, playing 47 times on the ATP Tour with Djokovic edging the overall record on 25 wins.
The world number one has also won their past two contests at Wimbledon and Federer expects fine margins to decide a hard-fought affair.
“It’s the same as going into a Rafa match,” the Swiss said. “I think the moment you’ve played somebody probably more than 15 times, especially in recent years also a few times, there’s not that much more left out there.
“When you know where the players go when it really matters, how much can you still surprise somebody?
“I don’t think there’s much I need to do in terms of practice. This is like a school: the day of the test you’re not going to read however many books that day. You don’t have the time anyhow.
“It’s quite clear the work was done way before. I think that’s why I was able to produce a good result [against Nadal].
“It’s been a rock-solid year from me, winning in Halle. The stars are aligned right now. From that standpoint, I can go into that match very confident.”