Browsing: Lamine

Oct 17, 2025, 05:50 AM ET

Cristiano Ronaldo has again been named the highest-paid player in the world, while Barcelona’s phenom Lamine Yamal is on the list of the top 10, according to Forbes.

The American business magazine released its annual report of the world’s 10 highest earners.

The Forbes ranking reflects on-field earnings estimates for the 2025-26 season, including base salaries, bonuses and, club-based image rights agreements.

Ronaldo, 40, who on June signed a new two-year deal with Saudi Pro League club Al Nassr, is projected to claim $280 million in total earnings over the coming year before taxes and agents’ fees.

The Portugal captain, who recently declared he has no plans to retire as he is “still producing good things,” will earn $230m from Al Nassr during the 2025-26 season plus $50m in off-field earnings.

Ronaldo, who has over 1 billion total followers across his various social media accounts, leads the Forbes list for the sixth time in the last decade.

Inter Miami’s Lionel Messi is the only MLS representative on the list and is a distant second to Ronaldo.

The Argentina captain’s projected total income for 2025 is $130 million, with a whopping $70m coming from off-field earnings. Messi, 38, has endorsement deals with Adidas, Lay’s and Mastercard, among others.

Yamal, who inherited Barcelona’s iconic No. 10 shirt once worn by Messi, is the first 18-year-old to enter Forbes’ soccer list in its 22-year history.

Cristiano Ronaldo was recently named as football’s first billionaire player by Bloomberg. Maciej Rogowski/Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images

The Spain international put pen to paper on a 10-year contract with Barcelona in May. He completes the ranking with expected earnings of $43m.

Karim Benzema has climbed to third place, with the Al-Ittihad captain estimated to make around $100m on the pitch and around $4m off it.

Manchester City’s Erling Haaland is one of two Premier League players included. The Norwegian star’s estimated $80m earnings, some of which comes from his lucrative endorsement deal with Nike, place him at No. 5 while Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah, who signed a two-year deal to remain at Anfield this summer, is seventh at $55m.

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LaLiga have four players in the top 10, with Real Madrid’s Kylian Mbappé, Vinícius Júnior and Jude Bellingham fourth ($95m), sixth ($60m) and ninth ($44m), respectively.

Ronaldo’s Al Nassr teammate Sadio Mané is No. 8, expected to get $54m.

In total, the 10 highest paid players are set to collect record earnings worth $945 million this season, down nearly 4% from last year’s $983m.

Brazilian forward Neymar was No. 3 on last year’s list but has fallen out of the ranking since leaving Al Hilal earlier this year to rejoin boyhood club Santos.

Forbes’ top 10 high-paid players 2025:

1. Cristiano Ronaldo – $280m (On-field: $230m, off-field: $50m)
2. Lionel Messi – $130m (On-field: $60m, off-field: $70m)
3. Karim Benzema – $104m (On-field: $100m, off-field: $4m)
4. Kylian Mbapp̩Р$95m (On-field: $70m, off-field: $25m)
5. Erling Haaland– $80m (On-field: $60m, off-field: $20m)
6. Vinícius Júnior– $60m (On-field: $40m, off-field: $20m)
7. Mohamed Salah – $55m (On-field: $35m, off-field: $20m)
8. Sadio Man̩Р$54m (On-field: $50m, off-field: $4m)
9. Jude Bellingham – $44m (On-field: $29m, off-field: $15m)
10. Lamine Yamal – $43m (On-field: $33m, off-field: $10m)

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International superstars Lamine Yamal and Kylian Mbappe are both in the top four dribblers in Europe’s top five leagues but the front-running front-runner is making his presence felt in England, not Spain.

Barcelona teenager Yamal has completed the fourth-highest number of successful dribbles, with Real Madrid talisman Mbappe second on the list.

Yamal’s 21 dribbles and Mbappe’s 30 are split by the 22 successful dribbles by Real Sociedad’s Ander Barrenetxea but all three are looking up at the number of attempts and completions by the continent’s runaway runner.

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Analysis for the Premier League by Adrian Clarke has revealed that new Tottenham Hotspur signing Mohammed Kudus has produced 30 successful take-ons in 2025-26, more than any other player in the Premier League, Serie A, La Liga, Germany’s Bundesliga and Ligue 1 in France.

Noting that Kudus has primarily attacked defenders on Spurs’ right flank since moving from West Ham United in the summer transfer window, Clarke writes: “In Premier League terms, Kudus’ 30 successful dribbles put him 11 ahead of his nearest rival, Brighton & Hove Albion’s Yankuba Minteh (19).”

Lamine Yamal has his own argument to be the best dribbler in Europe (Image credit: Getty Images)

Regular observers of Kudus throughout his career will know that this season is no fluke in dribbling terms.

The Ghana international was a nuisance for defenders while playing for Danish Superliga side Nordsjaelland, though he was often deployed more centrally in what was at the time an incredibly fluid set-up.

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After joining Ajax, he was the Eredivisie’s top take-on man in 2022-23 before leading the Premier League and Europe’s top five leagues as a West Ham player in 2023-24.

He was second in the Premier League behind Manchester City winger Jeremy Doku (and both were miles behind Yamal) last season but has started life at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium as he means to go on, making sure to contribute with his final ball too.

Kudus emerged as one of Europe’s top take-on men during his time at Ajax (Image credit: Nesimages/Michael Bulder/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)

Only Jack Grealish of Everton has produced more goal-creating actions than Kudus this season, with the Ghanaian level on five in total with Riccardo Calafiori, Antoine Semenyo and Spurs teammate Pape Matar Sarr.

Kudus and Grealish top the Premier League assist rankings with four, while no player has attempted more crosses than Kudus. Pedro Porro, also of Spurs, is second in the Premier League in that category.

Dribbling isn’t everything. Mbappe has scored nine goals in La Liga this season and Yamal, while Kudus has one more assist so far, is the continental leader for assists per 90 minutes.

“Head coach Thomas Frank has encouraged Kudus to express himself, and the talented winger has certainly been fun to watch, showing good degrees of confidence,” offers Clarke.

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It’s the second international break of the 2025-26 season and Lamine Yamal has a week off. That’s good news from the perspective of the 18-year-old really needing it, but the bad news for the Barcelona and Spain forward is that he will spend it recovering from injury after suffering a groin issue during the Champions League defeat against Paris Saint-Germain last Wednesday.

Lamal’s groin injury could simply be down to bad luck and the rigors of top-level football, but when the teenager’s incredible appearance numbers are factored in — 130 senior games and 8,158 minutes on the pitch by his 18th birthday — the shadow of burnout and the danger of football running its bigger young star into the ground becomes a worrying possibility.

No other elite footballer has registered anywhere close to the appearances and minutes clocked up by Yamal by the age of 18 and his workload has led to FIFPRO, the global players’ union, using his game-time for club and country as a case study in a 51-page report on the 2024-25 season titled “Overworked and Underprotected — Player Heath and Performance Impact.”

“The modern game’s rising intensity is challenging enough for established professionals, but for young players aged 16 to 20, the risks are even greater,” Dr Darren Burgess, Chair of FIFPRO’s High-Performance Advisory Network said. “At a stage when their bodies and minds are still developing, the demands of congested schedules and high-intensity training can have lasting consequences for both performance and career longevity.”

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So how much more active has Yamal been than his contemporaries? The answer to that is staggering, and perhaps alarming.

Yamal’s 130 appearances for Barcelona and Spain prior to his 18th birthday are almost twice as many as the second player on the list of current players among those two teams: Pau Cubarsí, the 18-year-old defender, registered 69 appearances, with midfielders Gavi (60) and Pedri (49) next.

Beyond Barcelona and Spain, Yamal’s numbers continue to be off the scale in comparison to those playing at a similar level.

Yamal’s sensational performances last year saw him named as the 2024 Golden Boy — the award presented by Italian newspaper Tuttosport to the most outstanding Under-21 footballer in Europe — and he did so having clocked up 8,158 minutes by his 18th birthday.

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None of the three most recent winners — Jude Bellingham (2023), Gavi (2022) and Pedri (2021) — come close. Bellingham was nearest, with 6,216 minutes by his 18th birthday, while Gavi (4,195) and Pedri (3,811) both had significantly lower minutes.

Bellingham’s workload has often been cited as a concern, with the Real Madrid and England midfielder having been a regular at club level since breaking through as a 16-year-old at Birmingham City, but the now-22-year-old did not make his 100th senior appearance until he was 18 years and 10 months old.

Guess what? Yamal became the youngest player ever to reach 100 games by hitting the mark aged 17 years and seven months — eclipsing previous record holder Romelu Lukaku by four months.

So far in his prodigious career, since making his Barcelona debut aged just 15 years, nine months and 16 days against Real Betis in April 2023, Yamal has been relatively untroubled by injury, missing just 18 games for Barca and Spain in that time, including Sunday’s LaLiga clash against Sevilla, but according to Transfermarkt, his injuries have already amounted to 133 days out of action since his club debut.

Lamine Yamal is key for both club and country, but how do they balance his minutes? David Ramirez/Soccrates/Getty Images

And if Barcelona’s worst fears are confirmed, Yamal’s latest injury could keep him out of action for up to a month, ruling him out of Spain’s World Cup qualifiers against Georgia and Bulgaria over the next week and putting his participation in El Clasico against Real Madrid on Oct. 26 in doubt.

“We don’t know when Lamine will return because with this injury,” Barcelona coach Hansi Flick said on Friday. “It’s not easy to say since it’s not a muscle injury. We don’t know if he’ll be back in two, three, or four weeks, so I don’t know if he’ll be ready for the Clasico. We have to manage his minutes. He’ll take it step-by-step.”

There is already clear tension between Barcelona and Spain over the national team’s handling of the player, however. Flick, who coached Germany between leaving Bayern Munich in 2021 and joining Barcelona in 2024, was pointed in his criticism of Spain’s use of Yamal during the September World Cup qualifiers.

“It’s a shame,” he said. “He [Yamal] went to the national team in pain, played and was given painkillers to play. He played 79 minutes and 73 — that’s not taking care of the players.

“Spain has the best players in every position. It would be worth taking care of the young players. I’m sad about the situation, but it’s like they are doing this [to them].”

In response, Spain coach Luis de la Fuente questioned Flick’s comments, saying he “was surprised, given that he [Flick] is a manager who has also coached a national team and I thought he would have had more empathy.”

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Hislop: Yamal will compete for the Ballon d’Or every year

Shaka Hislop believes it’s only a matter of time before Lamine Yamal claims his own Ballon d’Or trophy.

Yamal isn’t the first young player to himself at the center of club versus country tension.

Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen, two players who shot to international stardom at major tournaments with England at the age of 18, constantly found themselves in the starting XI for club and country, and both have since admitted to rushing back into action too soon for the national team following lengthy injury battles.

Owen and Rooney were also well past their best and discarded by England by the age of 30, so there are warning signs for Yamal to heed.

“Physically, exposing teenagers to repeated match and training loads designed for fully mature players increases the risk of overuse injuries,” Burgess, who is also a former high-performance director at Arsenal and Liverpool, said. “Growth plates, tendons, and ligaments remain vulnerable during these years, and excessive high-speed running or short recovery windows can lead to long-term structural damage.

“What might begin as a minor issue — a recurring hamstring strain, a stress fracture — can quickly become a pattern that follows a player throughout their career. Perhaps the greatest cost of all is lost potential. A player rushed into the spotlight too soon, without adequate protection and progressive development, may see their career shortened before it ever truly begins.”

Barcelona and Spain, therefore, have a huge responsibility to Yamal and other youngsters who pull on their iconic jerseys. At 18, Yamal has the world at his feet and could be the natural heir to Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, but he won’t have a chance if he burns out before he hits 30.

“If the sport is serious about nurturing the next generation, it must prioritize development over exploitation,” Burgess said. “Only then will today’s young talents have the chance to become tomorrow’s enduring stars.”

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Lamine Yamal has enjoyed an outstanding year for Barcelona and the Spanish national team despite the fact he has only recently turned 18.

Yamal ran Ballon d’Or favourite and eventual winner Ousmane Dembele close for football’s best individual prize, but lost out as judges deemed the Frenchman’s efforts superior to that of the young Spaniard.

There were jubilant scenes in the French capital as the ceremony’s main prize was awarded to the Champions League-winning Paris Saint-Germain forward.

Yamal did not leave empty-handed, however, taking home the coveted Kopa Trophy, which recognises the best player in Men’s world football under the age of 21, for a second year running.

“He [Lamine]’s the greatest,” Nasraoui told El Chiringuito. “I’m not going to say theft, but rather moral damage to a human being.

“Lamine Yamal is the best player in the world by far. It’s not just because he’s my son, but because he’s the best player in the world.

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“Lamine is Lamine. We have to say that something strange has happened here. Next year it’s ours. Next year the Ballon d’Or will be Spanish,” he added, defiantly.

How is the Ballon d’Or decided?

Voters are instructed to base their choices on three main criteria: Individual Performance, Team Success and Fair Play.

PSG’s inaugural Champions League victory is therefore likely to have worked in Dembele’s favour, although the French forward was, in his own right, instrumental during that historic run which culminated in the 5-0 final demolition of Inter Milan.

Meanwhile, in the Women’s category, Aitana Bonmati took home the Ballon d’Or Feminin for a third consecutive year.

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Paris Saint-Germain forward Ousmane Dembélé has beaten Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal to the Ballon d’Or after a fine season that ended with Champions League success.

Dembélé, 28, scored 35 goals in 53 appearances in all competitions for treble-winners PSG, who also won Ligue 1 and the Coupe de France in addition to their first ever Champions League trophy.

The French side also reached the final of the Club World Cup in the summer, eventually losing to Chelsea in the final in the United States.

Dembélé — who is currently injured and wasn’t part of PSG’s squad for Monday’s rescheduled game against Marseille — collected the award at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris on Monday.

The Ballon d’Or is given to the best men’s player over the past season and is administered by France Football, with international journalists voting for the winner based on individual performances, team achievements and a player’s class and fair play.

“Thank you all,” an emotional Dembélé said on Monday. “What just happened to me is incredible. I’m speechless. It’s been an amazing season with PSG. I’ve experienced incredible things, and I’m a little nervous; it’s not easy.

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“Receiving this trophy, especially from Ronaldinho, is truly exceptional. I want to thank PSG for signing me in 2023. The president, the entire team, and the club. They are a wonderful family. From day one, the president has treated me very well.”

Dembélé, who succeeds Manchester City’s Rodri as the winner, was considered one of the biggest talents in the game when he broke onto the scene, first at Rennes and later at Borussia Dortmund.

He became the sixth Frenchman to win it after Raymond Kopa, Michel Platini, Jean-Pierre Papin, Zinedine Zidane and Karim Benzema.

“I would also like to thank all the staff at PSG who have been fantastic,” he said. “Luis Enrique, who is like a father to me. He has been very important to my career, even though it’s not over yet. Thank you to all my teammates. We’ve won almost everything. You’ve been by my side, and together we’ve raised our level to achieve these team trophies. This is an individual award, but we all share in this success as a team.”

Barcelona paid over €100 million ($117.7m) to sign him in 2017, but despite spending six seasons at the Catalan club, he never quite managed to elevate his game to the next level.

However, since moving to PSG in 2023 for €50m, he has established himself as one of the best players in the game under coach Luis Enrique.

PSG’s Ousmane Dembélé beat Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal for the 2025 Ballon d’Or. FRANCK FIFE/AFP via Getty Images

“Thank you to all the clubs I’ve played for: Stade Rennes, Borussia Dortmund, and the club I always dreamed of playing for, Barcelona,” he said. “I learned so much there, playing alongside players like Messi and Iniesta. It was a great learning experience. I am so happy. When I see the list of legends who have won this award… I worked hard for the team to win the Champions League, Ligue 1 … to win this trophy is incredible. I am very happy.”

Last season, after Kylian Mbappé‘s move to Real Madrid, he took on an even more central role in the side, often playing through the middle as opposed to wide, and the results were explosive.

In addition to his 35 goals, he also registered 16 assists as part of a PSG team that made history by winning the treble.

Dembélé’s biggest competition came from teenager Yamal, who helped Barça to win LaLiga, the Copa del Rey and the Spanish Supercopa.

Yamal, 18, also produced some of his best moments and goals in the biggest games, including the Champions League semifinal defeat to Inter Milan and the Clásico against Real Madrid.

Earlier in Paris, Yamal also won the Kopa Trophy for best under-21 player over the previous season, while Vicky López of Barcelona won the women’s best under-21 player.

“I need to keep on working to win other awards in the future,” Yamal said.

Barcelona and Spain star Aitana Bonmatí was awarded her third straight Ballon d’Or Féminin, joining Michel Platini and Lionel Messi as only the third player in history to three-peat.

Elsewhere, Arsenal’s Viktor Gyökeres, formerly of Sporting CP, and Barcelona’s Ewa Pajor won the Gerd Müller trophy for most goals in the season, while Manchester City’s Gianluigi Donnarumma and Chelsea’s Hannah Hampton were named best goalkeepers in the world. Donnarumma received the honor for his performances with PSG in the 2024-25 season and with Italy.

PSG manager Luis Enrique and England women’s team manager, Sarina Wiegman, received the Johan Cruyff trophies, awarded to the best coaches of the year.

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