The guaranteed weekly/annual wage. PL top earners: £300-400K/week. Average PL player: ~£60K/week. League Two: ~£2-5K/week. The gap is enormous — a top-6 substitute earns more than most League One starting XIs combined.
Goals scored, clean sheets, appearances, Champions League qualification, title wins. These can add 20-50% on top of base salary. Smart clubs structure contracts with lower base + high bonuses to manage risk.
Players can sell their image rights through a separate company — often taxed at a lower rate. Clubs pay a fee to use the player's image in marketing. This is where the real money is for star players. It's perfectly legal tax planning.
A price at which the club MUST accept a transfer. Mandatory in Spain. Optional elsewhere. Neymar's €222M clause was triggered by PSG in 2017. Yamal's is €1B. Most PL clubs avoid them.
Agents typically earn 5-10% of the transfer fee OR the player's salary. FIFA is trying to cap this at 6%. In 2023, Premier League clubs paid £318M in agent fees alone. The most powerful agents (Mendes, Raiola's successors) shape the market.