The Wall Street Journal: Sports Has a New Salary King:
The highest-salaried athlete in professional sports these days may be a Cameroonian soccer player named Samuel Eto’o, who will play his home games for an obscure club in the violence-wracked Caucasus region of Dagestan, Russia.
In a deal announced Tuesday, Anzhi Makhachkala of the Russian Premier League agreed to pay Eto’o's former club, Inter Milan, a transfer fee of $39 million to acquire the 30-year-old forward. The team also agreed to a contract with the player that, given Russia’s favorable tax rates, would net Eto’o $29 million per season. That not only eclipses the estimated $17.4 million salary Cristiano Ronaldo earns at Real Madrid, it also outstrips the net income of top U.S. stars like Manning, Rodriguez and Kobe Bryant.
