Highest Paid Premier League Players: Salary per Week (2024)

Kevin de Bruyne is the highest-paid English Premier League football player. De Bruyne was also the highest-paid player in the 2023/24 Premier League season. The Belgium playmaker has been injury-prone in the last few seasons but is still Manchester City’s best player. Although Rodri won the 2024 Ballon d’Or for his incredible unbeaten run with City and Spain, De Bruyne is City’s jewel in the crown.

De Bruyne is not the only player earning eye-watering sums of money to kick around a football. All Premier League footballers earn large salaries, even the young players out of the academy compared to the humble man on the street. Footballers are entertainers. And like film stars and musicians, they deserve their piece of the pie. 

A high proportion of the highest-paid football players in the Premier League come from the English top-flight’s most historic and successful clubs. Last season, nine of the top 10 best-paid Premier League players earned £300,000 or more per week. In 2024/25, eight players make at least £300,000 a week. 

Using Capology, Salary Sport, and Spotrac, three of the most accurate and reputable financial online resource for sports salaries, SportsBoom has listed the top 10 highest-paid footballers in the English Premier League, and how much they earn in 2024.

How Much Do Premier League Clubs Pay Their Players?

English Premier League football clubs pay many a king’s ransom for the best players in the world. They pay outlandish transfer fees, then bolster the fees with millions of pounds per month in salaries. Then there are the bonuses for individual and team targets: trophies, goals, clean sheets. 

Manchester City pay their highest earner £400,000 per week, and Manchester United and Liverpool pay their highest earners £350,000 per week. Arsenal’s highest earners do not make the top 10 list. Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur have no players on the top 10 list of highest-paid footballers in the Premier League, the only two ‘Big Six teams with no footballers on the chart. 

Eight of the ten best-paid footballers in the EPL come from clubs in the North West of England. Two players come from North London. Manchester City have four of the highest earners on their payroll. There are no teams outside the ‘Big Six’ that pay players a minimum of £200,000 per week. Twenty football players make 200k or more a week in the EPL.

The Highest-Paid Premier League Players at Manchester City

Manchester City spend lavishly on their star-studded team. City has the ability to pay the highest salaries per week because they have unlimited money from the club’s owners. The club is owned by Abu Dhabi United Group, the sovereign wealth fund of the Qatar royal family. They are under investigation for 115 breaches of Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules. 

Kevin de Bruyne, Erling Haaland, and Jack Grealish are handsomely rewarded by the Abu Dhabi royal family for their services to City and Qatar. All three players make £300,000 per week. It is money well spent by City Football Group because the success and silverware keep mounting. 

De Bruyne has been the highest-paid footballer in the Premier League for the last few years. He earns a princely £400,000 per week, equating to £20,800,000 per year. The Manchester City playmaker is followed closely by goal-scoring sensation Haaland. Haaland is rewarded £375k per week to find the back of the net for The Citizens. 

Haaland and Foden//Getty Images

Grealish is City’s most-expensive signing (£100m), the fourth most-expensive English player in history, and the third-highest-paid player in the EPL. The former Aston Villa midfielder earns £300k a week. He is the highest-paid English footballer.  Surprisingly, the wide playmaker has fallen out of favour with manager Pep Guardiola and spent most of the last two seasons on the bench. 

Grealish is not considered a flop; he has won the lot. However, Guardiola is no stranger to selling superstars, as proven during his time at Barcelona. Because of the wealth of owner Sheikh Mansour (and his family) and the club’s extravagant and controversially assembled squad, Grealish might find himself permanently in the cold if he does not start performing like a club-record signing. 

The Highest-Paid Premier League Players at Manchester United

Manchester United pays Carlos Casemiro, Bruno Fernandes, and Marcus Rashford upwards of £300,000 per week. This makes them the best-paid players at Old Trafford. Casemiro is the best-paid, earning £350,000 per week at United. The Brazilian is starting to look old; his performances have become questionable.

Casemiro put on a disaster class against Liverpool at the beginning of the season. The Reds cruised to a 3-0 victory in Manchester. The midfielder was at fault for two goals and had a nightmare as Liverpool ran through him. 

Boyhood United fan and Academy youth product Rashford and Fernandes are the equal-fifth best-paid players in the EPL in 2024. The English and Portuguese earn £300,000 a week, but their individual displays have been below par for years. Moreover, United have been in rapid decline since Sir Alex Ferguson retired.

Fernandes scored his first EPL goal (a penalty) against Chelsea in Gameweek 10 in November. Rashford is having a torrid time, he only has one goal. United have had the worst start to a season since the 1986/87 First Division campaign, the year Sir Alex Ferguson joined the club. The club’s owners, the Glazer family, have overspent for years, paying big wages to poor-quality players.

Bruno Fernandes//Getty Images

The underperforming team sit in the bottom half of the 2024/25 Premier League table. United won three of their first nine matches before the owners fired Erik ten Hag. The Red Devils had only scored eight goals, their worst return since the 1973/74 season. The defence is as poor as the attack.

United conceded eleven in nine, with a negative three-goal difference. Moreover, Ten Hag’s team had a negative goal difference since the 2023/24 campaign. He was never going to last. The Dutchman was sacked after a 2-1 defeat away to West Ham United at the end of October, with United in fourteenth place on the log. 

The Glazers have sacked six managers in eleven seasons since ‘Fergie’ retired. They have had three interim managers and coaches, too. It might be time to cut the purse strings, change the scouting department, and develop young talent through the once-famous academy. Either way, new manager Rúben Amorim has a big job at the dysfunctional and decaying club. 

The Highest-Paid Premier League Players at Liverpool

Liverpool is England’s most successful football club, but they do not pay as high salaries as the other ‘Top Six’ teams in the English top flight. Due to prudence in the transfer market - and a sell-to-buy strategy - only Mohamed Salah is on the top 10 list of highest-paid footballers in the Premier League.

Salah is the equal-third best-paid player in England. He earns £350,000 per week. Along with De Bruyne, Salah is the best player in the Premier League, and both have been consistently the best for the past six or seven years. The Egyptian King is, however, not certain to sign a new deal at the club and could leave for free at the end of the 204/25 season. 

If Salah re-signs a new contract, he will likely move ahead of De Bruyne on the pay scale. This would make Virgil van Dijk or Trent Alexander-Arnold the best-paid player at the club. Both players’ contracts are also finished at the end of this season. It is unlikely Liverpool will keep all three players. Contract talks are secretive, so there is no telling who will stay.

Whoever decides to stay with the club will be rewarded with a lucrative salary increase. However, the Reds could lose all three stars for free, which would be a disaster for the team and fans and would result in financial mismanagement not seen this side of Old Trafford. Liverpool owners FSG are notoriously tight with the purse strings, but someone is getting paid. 

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