Football’s first player to be paid £300,000 per week

Samuel Eto'o

Samuel Eto'oA little known Russian club are about to smash the global weekly wage ceiling into smithereens with the latest signing. When you think of the best-paid footballer on the planet, there are a number of names that come to the fore. Cristiano Ronaldo, Leo Messi, Wayne Rooney, Carlos Tevez to name but a few. They’d be playing for Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester City or Manchester United. Therefore, the fact that 30-year-old Samuel Eto’o will break the record moving to Anzhi Makhachkala may shock some.

The sum being offered to Inter is reportedly around £30million with the wages of £300,000-per-week basic meaning Eto’o receives £15.6million-per-year. It tops the record salary of £250,000-per-week given to Wayne Rooney at Manchester United and will mean that much is expected of the former African player of the year. He can easily shoulder all that responsibility though

Samuel Eto’o has played for Barca, Real and Inter Milan winning title after title and notching over a goal every two games. A move to Russian could be seen as a backward step for a striker that still managed 37 goals in 53 games in one of Europe’s top leagues last term. Money talks in the global game though.

It will certainly cause reverberations in the sports betting industry as the emergence of another side with financial might at the top of the Russian Premier League can only be good for competition. After such a good season last year and with support from fellow summer signings Balasz Dzsudzsák and Yuri Zhirkov, the Cameroon international could easily top the Europe-wide goalscoring. With the continued financial-might, we might see the first Russian side to win the Champions League at some point soon. Talk about a shift in power!