Paris (AFP)
With his XXL contract of 205 million dollars over five years, the French pivot of Utah's NBA franchise Rudy Gobert will unceremoniously shake up the hierarchy of the highest paid French athletes, an unofficial ranking that is difficult to establish because it is based on estimates.
According to the American economic magazine Forbes, whose annual ranking of the best paid sportsmen in the world refers, the striker of Paris SG and of the France team Kylian Mbappé was in 2020 the highest paid French sportsman with $ 33.8 million (EUR 27.6 million), including $ 20.8 million in salaries and $ 13 million in sponsorship and partnership contracts.
He was ahead of his teammates in the France team Paul Pogba (Manchester United, 28.5 M USD) and Antoine Griezmann (Barcelona, 26.7 M USD), the only French to enter this world top 100.
In 2020, Gobert's salary was nevertheless around $ 25.5 million, according to the site specializing in the study of North American professional sports Spotrac.
With this new contract which will come into force in 2021, his annual salary will soar to 41 million dollars per year, or 33.5 million euros, on average over the five seasons between 2021 and 2026.
A figure that does not take into account his partnership contracts, but which will allow Gobert to dominate, from the height of his 2.16 m, head and shoulders his French footballer comrades.
Except that the weekly France Football estimated in March 2020 that Antoine Griezmann received in 2019 38.5 million euros, which would still rank him above Gobert.
Even if these figures are amazing, the French are far from the top of the world basket.
In 2020, according to Forbes still, the highest paid sportsman was the Swiss tennis player Roger Federer with $ 106.3 million (including $ 100 million in partnership contracts!), Ahead of the Portuguese star of Juventus Cristiano Ronaldo (105 M USD), his great Argentinian rival of Barça Lionel Messi (104 M USD) and the Brazilian attraction of Paris SG Neymar (95.5 M USD).
During the next edition of Forbes "World's Highest-Paid Athletes" ranking in 2021, Gobert will therefore make a spectacular entry into this world top 100 thanks to his new contract, but not only.
The global coronavirus crisis is already having a negative impact on the salaries of sports stars and on some of their partnership contracts.
© 2020 AFP