Messi highest paid player in world with nearly one mln-pound-a-week salary in 2014

Argentina football team captain Lionel Messi reportedly banked nearly one million pounds-a-week last year and is the highest paid player in the world.

France Football's annual survey of wages believes that the Barcelona star earns over 26 million pounds in his basic salary before bonuses and he earns almost double in commercial deals with blue-chip sponsors like Adidas, FIFA 15 and Turkish Airline to take his total annual income to 47.8 million pounds.

Cristiano Ronaldo is second with earnings on 39.7 million pounds with Neymar completing the top three of Spanish-based players on 26.8 million pounds, The Mirror reported.

The highest ranked player in the Premier League is Robin Van Persie in fifth place, who had a basic salary of 11.8 million pounds with bonuses of 5 million pounds, while commercial revenues take his total earning to 18.8 million pounds.

Van Persie is one place ahead of Gareth Bale, who earns 17.5 million pounds, and two in front of Wayne Rooney on 16.5 million pounds.

Sergio Aguero also makes the top ten earning 15.5 million pounds with Eden Hazard and Yaya Toure both earning 14.7 million pounds.

Jose Mourinho is the highest paid coach in the world with his 10 million pounds Chelsea salary and 3.2 million pounds in commercial revenue, while Arsene Wenger, earning 8.3 million pounds, and Louis Van Gaal, earning 7.3 million pounds, are also in the top ten along with Zenit's Andre Villas Boas on 6.25 million pounds and David Moyes on 5.14 million pounds now at Real Sociedad, the report added.