55 biggest salaries in Russian football

Salaries, bonuses, and other payments to players and coaches, as well as the respective taxes, make up for the biggest item of expenditures in the budgets of the Russian clubs. It is what the local Premier League clubs spend about 60 to 80 percent of their budgets on, and it is the growth of such costs that has been constantly driving the budgets’ increase (they’ve grown in 7-8 times during the last decade).

The sources of our ranking are the insiders of the football market, including managers, coaches, Russian FA officers, and players themselves. Figures in our ranking represent fixed yearly payments to players and coaches. These include the salary itself and the signature bonus (the latter being divided by the number of years on the contract) and do not include performance bonuses. Where the amount of the signature bonus is unknown (as with Roberto Carlos, Cesar Navas, Hector Bracamonte), only their salary is given. No Russian clubs officially disclose their salaries and bonuses. It happened only once, when the management of Saturn made it – probably, in order to soothe the universal grief for the club’s bankruptcy, surprising the public with the enormous salaries earned by its mediocre players. All the figures on our list are after-tax net amounts in Euro. As of today 1 Euro is around 1.43 US dollars.

There are 22 Russians in the Top 50. A year ago local players would have occupied even a half of the list. For instance, Andrey Karyaka and Alexey Rebko used to earn two million each, but the poor season made them agree to cut their salaries more than twice at their new clubs.

Zenit St. Petersburg is represented by 14 players and their coach, Rubin Kazan and Dynamo Moscow have 9 players each, while CSKA Moscow has 8 representatives on the list. In general, players from 8 clubs have made in into our ranking.

While at least 80 players in Russia earn more than one million per year, you can count coaches with such salaries on the fingers of your hand. It does reflect the global trend more or less: most coaches today are paid less that the star players in their teams. However, in Russian football coaches have two of the three biggest salaries. We bet you have guessed their names. Yes, these are Dick Advocaat, the national team coach, and Zenit head coach Luciano Spaletti.

Top 50 players’ salaries

(all figures in million Euro)

1. Kevin Kuranyi (Dynamo) – 5.7

2. Miguel Danny (Zenit) – 3.4

3. Andrey Voronin (Dynamo) – 3

4. Carlos Eduardo (Rubin) – 2.6

5. Mbark Boussoufa (Anzhi) – 2.4

6. Bruno Alves (Zenit) – 2.3

7-9. Alexander Bukharov (Zenit) – 2.2

7-9. Vagner Love (CSKA) – 2.2

7-9. Fernando Meira (Zenit) – 2.2

10-12. Alexander Kerzhakov (Zenit) – 2.1

10-12. Salvatore Bocchetti (Rubin) – 2.1

10-12. Gokdeniz Karadeniz (Rubin) – 2.1

13-22. Igor Akinfeev (CSKA) – 2

13-22. Roberto Carlos (Anzhi) – 2*

13-22. Vladimir Gabulov (Dynamo) – 2

13-22. Sergey Semak (Zenit) – 2

13-22. Igor Denisov (Zenit) – 2

13-22. Konstantin Zyryanov (Zenit) – 2

13-22. Alexander Anyukov (Zenit) – 2

13-22. Vyacheslav Malafeev (Zenit) – 2

13-22. Danko Lazovic (Zenit) – 2

13-22. Nicolas Lombaerts (Zenit) – 2

23. Aiden McGeady (Spartak Moscow) – 1.9

24-29. Sergey Ignashevich (CSKA) – 1.8

24-29. Vasily Berezutski (CSKA) – 1.8

24-29. Alexey Berezutski (CSKA) – 1.8

24-29. Igor Semshov (Dynamo) – 1.8

24-29. Leandro Fernandez (Dynamo) – 1.8

24-29. Denis Kolodin (Dynamo) – 1.8

31. Sergey Ryzhikov (Rubin) – 1.7

32-34. Welliton (Spartak Moscow) – 1.6

32-34. Zvjezdan Misimovic (Dynamo) – 1.6

32-34. Cristian Ansaldi (Rubin) – 1.6

35-41. Yevgeny Aldonin (CSKA) – 1.5

35-41. Alexander Samedov (Dynamo) – 1.5

35-41. Roman Sharonov (Rubin) – 1.5

35-41. Alan Kasaev (Rubin) – 1.5

35-41. Christian Noboa (Rubin) – 1.5

35-41. Roman Shirokov (Zenit) – 1.5

35-41. Diego Tardelli (Anzhi) – 1.5

42-45. Cesar Navas (Rubin) – 1.4*

42-45. Zoran Tosic (CSKA) – 1.4

42-45. Viktor Faizulin (Zenit) – 1.4

42-45. Tomislav Dujmovic (Dynamo) – 1.4

45-50. Alex Meschini (Spartak Moscow) – 1.3

45-50. Dmitry Torbinski (Lokomotiv) – 1.3

45-50. Jan Durica (Lokomotiv)– 1.3

45-50. Jucilei (Anzhi) – 1.3

45-50. Hector Bracamonte (Terek) – 1,3*

45-50. Keisuke Honda (CSKA) – 1,3

* – doesn’t include signature bonus.

Top 5 coaches’ salaries

1. Dick Advocaat (national team) – 7

2. Luciano Spaletti (Zenit) – 4

3. Miodrag Bozovic (Dynamo)– 2

4. Ruud Gullit (Terek) – 1.5

5. Leonid Slutski (CSKA) – 1.2

by Denis Bystrov