West Brom Albion striker Brown Ideye has toppled Nigeria’s big guns like Chelsea star Mikel Obi and Yakubu Aiyegbeni as the country’s highest earning footballer in Europe. Mikel Obi in the 2012/2013.
season was Nigeria’s highest paid footballer earning four million pounds a year. Yakubu Aiyegbeni with a move to Chinese club Guangzhou beat Mikel to earnings by taking home 5.4million pounds. But in an unprecedented turn of events, Brown Ideye this season beat all former big earners by penning down a 10 million pounds deal for West Brom Albion of England emerging as the highest paid Nigerian footballer.
But who is Brown Ideye? The 25-year-old player began his career with Bayelsa United before crossing over to Ocean Boys and was a member of the Ocean Boys team that won the Nigerian Premier League. He signed for European club Neuchatel Xamax, a Swiss side in January 2008 and
moved to France to sign for French Ligue 1 club FC Sochaux. Again he moved on July 6 2011 to sign a five-year deal with Ukrainian side Dynamo Kyiv. In August 2012, Ideye scored the winner in a Champions League qualifying 3rd round second-leg game against Feyenoord, in which Kyiv progressed. In July 2014 he signed a three-year deal with English Premier League club West Bromwich Albion, becoming the club’s record signing at £10 million.
On the continent however, other top footballers plying their trades across foreign leagues in the world earn more Nigerian players.
Players like Yaya Toure, Kolo Toure and Didier Drogba of Cote d’Ivoire, Asamoan Gyan, Michael Essien, Andrew Ayew of Ghana, Samuel Eto’o of Cameroon and Seidu Kaita of Mali smile to their banks weekly or monthly while Nigerian stars on their part only made marginal increases as the case may be.
Reports reveal though that some Nigerians playing outside the popular major leagues in Europe take home good sum of money than most of their counterparts in the top leagues like the English Premiership, Spanish La Liga and Italian Serie A.
This is not to say, though, that they are not earning well. Reports reveal that some of them get quite enough. Particularly, those playing outside the popular major leagues in Europe take home good sums of money, compared to what most of their counterparts in top leagues like the English Premiership, Spanish La Liga and Italian Serie A earn.
Brown Ideye
Transfer Fee: £10m
Ideye began his football career with Ocean Boys where he won the Nigerian Premier League before venturing to Europe. He was seen then as the most aspiring youngster from Nigeria. 20 years old at the time, he joined Swiss outfit Neuchatel Xamax. A failed trial at Dutch side
Willem II Tilburg along the way made him land in Ligue 1 with Sochaux, which cost about £4m.
He has since upped his price, particularly after joining Dynamo Kiev for £7m in 2011. West Bromwich Albion went all out to buy the Super Eagles forward for a £10m transfer fee, breaking their own record. But many questions have been asked since they bought the striker from Dynamo Kiev. Who is he and what has he done to justify that kind of money?
John Mikel Obi
Annual Wage: £4.16million
The Chelsea midfielder was previously earning £2,600,000 (£50,000 per week) before signing a five-year contract extension in 2012 worth £4,160,000 annually. His hefty pay packet however suffered substantial tax cuts under the United Kingdom tax rules. He joined Chelsea in 2006 from Norwegian club FC Lyn Oslo on a US$25m move.
The 25-year-old Jos-born player is a big investor in real estate and owns mansions in Jos, Lagos and London worth about N800m. Mikel also has
shares in top companies.
Yakubu Aiyegbeni
Annual Wage: £5.04million
The widely travelled Nigerian international has played for Julius Berger, Gil Vicente, Maccabi Haifa, Hapoel Kfar Saba, Portsmouth, Middlesbrough, Everton, Leicester City and Blackburn Rovers. He made a big money move to China’s Guangzhou R&F, where he was reported to have been pulling in nearly £100,000 a week, before joining a Qatari side recently for an undisclosed amount. Aiyegbeni’s annual take-home at his former Chinese club was placed at £5,040,000.
John Utaka
Annual Wage: £2.08million
Rumour has it that the former Super Eagles winger took home £80,000 a week at Portsmouth at a time when the club was in dire financial straits! But he insists he only earned about £30,000 at the club.
Utaka joined Montpellier in 2011 in a two and a half-year deal estimated at £40,000 per week.
Joseph Yobo
Annual Wage: £1.8million
The former Super Eagles skipper earned £1,974,000 annually at Everton, but took a pay cut after Fenerbahce coughed out £2.5m to Everton FC for his transfer. The cut was, however, insignificant, since Yobo was reported to have earned in the region of £1.8m in wages per year in the three-year deal at Fenerbahce. The plus for Yobo was that his earnings were barely taxed in Turkey, unlike his colleagues in the United Kingdom who pay up to 35% tax on income.
Kalu Uche
Annual Wage: £1.04million, plus a £630,000 transfer payout
It was payday in a big way for the erstwhile Super Eagles midfielder, when in 2012 he was paid £630,000, being half of his transfer fee from Espanyol to Turkish club Kasimpasa.
Kalu, who had moved to Espanyol on a free deal from his previous Swiss club Neuchatal Xamas, which was later declared bankrupt, had an agreement with Espanyol to take 50% of any subsequent transfer fee, if Espanyol were to sell. That plus his estimated £20,000 weekly wage fetched him a place on this list.
Victor Moses
Weekly Wage: £55,000
Moses joined Chelsea in the 2012 season for £9m, after leaving Wigan. Failing to secure a regular shirt in Chelsea, he secured a deal on reduced terms with Liverpool, but the club was concerned about the forward’s £55,000 a week salary.
Obafemi Martins
Annual Wage: $6, 695,000
The on-loan Levante of Spain forward has played for top clubs like Inter-Milan of Italy, Newcastle United of England, Birmingham City of England, Vfl Wolfsborg of Germany, Rubin Kazan of Russia and is currently with the Seattle Sounders in the United States of America.
The widely travelled Martins was the fifth highest paid player in United States Major League Soccer for the 2013 season, according to a players’ union release. He is also the highest paid ever player for
Seattle Sounders, with an annual basic salary of $6, 695,000.
The 28-year-old striker owns two mansions at Victoria Garden City in Lagos worth N500m, a massive home in Como, Italy valued at N800m and top hotels in Italy. Martins, who recently delved into philanthropy, put N400m into his charity foundation.