Highest paid athletes

The Spaniards Fernando Alonso, Rafael Nadal and Pau Gasol are among the 50 highest paid athletes in the world according to a list prepared by Forbes magazine which is headed for another year by the American golfer Tiger Woods.

The magazine published today a ranking of the highest paid athletes in the world on its website, both for their work and advertising and other income-is led by golfer Tiger Woods (75 million dollars earned in the last twelve months) followed by NBA basketball players Kobe Bryant (53 million) and LeBron James (48).

On the list the Formula One driver Fernando Alonso has eleventh place with an income of 32 million dollars, tennis player Rafael Nadal is twelfth with 31.5 million and basketball player Pau Gasol, with 18.9 million, occupies the penultimate position.

The top ten on the list, besides the three already mentioned, are Roger Federer (47 million), Phil Mickelson (46.5), David Beckham (40), Cristiano Ronaldo (38), Alex Rodriguez (35), Michael Schumacher (34) and Lionel Messi (32.3).

Also on the list are Brazilian football players Kaka (ranked 24 with 25 million) and Ronaldinho (at 27, with 24.7 million).

According to Forbes, the 50 highest paid athletes, in which there is a majority of Americans (29), have earned in the last year a total of 1.4 billion dollars, representing a drop of 11 per cent over last year and representing an average of 28 million per player.

All of them have an average of 32 years of age, the oldest being Schumacher, 42, and the youngest Messi, aged 23. The only woman who is part of this privileged group of athletes is tennis player Maria Sharapova, who is ranked 29, with income of 24.2 million dollars.

By sport, according to Forbes on their website, the most represented is basketball, with 15 players in the ranking, followed by baseball (11), car racing (7), football (6), golf (4) , American football (3), tennis (3) and boxing (1).