Business

It will come as no surprise to even the greenest of soccer fans that, while money can’t buy you love, it can certainly buy you a solid full-back or a game-changing winger with quicksilver in his heels and an eye for goal. And a lot of money (£5.13bn or $7.91bn to be precise), spread across the Premier League’s 20 clubs, can buy a lot of quality players – and, in turn, a bigger and better Premier League TV deal – or so conventional logic would have us believe.

For Pete's sake, Neymar, do your taxes.

The Brazilian striker has had assets totalling $47.75 million frozen by a Brazilian court due to tax evasion charges. 

Neymar makes about $14 million in salary and $17 million in endorsements. That is enough money for someone to live on even if he pays his taxes.

James Rodriguez made a big splash at the 2014 World Cup, prompting Real Madrid to spend a boatload of money to buy the Colombian attacking midfielder from Monaco. We went through Rodriguez's transfer histry to figure out how much he cost each time he was bought and sold throughout his career.

Lionel Messi is one of the richest athletes in the world in 2015. He may not be the richest soccer player – that honor goes to Cristiano Ronaldo of Real Madrid – but he's certainly close. And, as of 2014, Lionel Messi had the highest salary (overall earnings) of any footballer.

So exactly how much is Messi worth, and how much does he get paid?

I am not one to say "I told you so."

That was a bold-faced lie. I am totally one to say "I told you so," and that's why I am saying "I told you so."

Or, rather, I almost told you so.

Some months ago I wrote an article that argued the merits of Lionel Messi leaving Barcelona and joining Liga MX side Queretaro.

Last week, EA Sports released its new "Play Beautiful" commercial for FIFA 16 and, boy, is it a star-studded affair.

We could try to do justice to the ridiculousness of it by describing the celebrity players featured – Lionel Messi, Sergio Aguero, Alex Morgan, Kobe Bryant to name a few – and stream-of-conscious flow of the action. But, instead, we'll just let you watch and bask in the awesome over-the-top-ness of it all.

Colombian James Rodriguez has nearly doubled his value in the transfer market since joining Real Madrid. Rodriguez has done this despite not having won La Liga, the Copa del Rey or the Champions League, and despite spending time away from the field due to injuries (he suffered a thigh tear with Colombia during the most recent international break and is expected to be out for several weeks).

Rodriguez’s career at Real Madrid so far seems to be all about numbers, so here are the 20 numbers we would use to explain how it’s gone so far for the young attacking mid.

The arrival of West Ham United’s new Olympic Stadium in the 2016/17 season has Hammer’s fans on the edge of their old Upton Park seats in excitement for the new 80,000 capacity stadium.

It is hard to imagine that, in a transfer period that has seen a 19-year-old acquired for €80 million, Angel Di Maria somehow move to a better team, and Arsenal get the keeper that they always needed, that the winner of the 15/16 transfer window won’t play on a single professional pitch this year. He won’t even be in the technical area. As a matter of fact, he could theoretically go an entire year without stepping foot inside a stadium, and still do his job. It would be very hard to actually do that, but knowing the pedigree of this man, I wouldn’t put it beyond him.

This is a public service announcement for journalists covering press conferences in which Zlatan Ibrahimovic happens to be speaking, especially journalists whom Zlatan Ibrahimovic doesn't particularly like: maybe don't ask Zlatan questions that will make him turn into a fire-breathing Swedish monster, throwing insults around like he's at the roast of Donald Trump or something.