Featured Image Credit: Getty
Topics: Premier League, Football, QPR, Manchester City, Sunderland
Ben McCrum
Topics: Premier League, Football, QPR, Manchester City, Sunderland
Former Premier League star Nedum Onuoha has opened up about how much he earned as part of a pay as you play contract.
It's no secret that playing as a professional footballer in the Premier League can be one of the most lucrative and financially rewarding jobs in the world.
Star players for the biggest clubs in England take home over £15million a year, with Erling Haaland believed to be the biggest earner with a reported weekly wage of around £525,000.
But the amount of money hasn't always been this high, with the highest paid players even one decade ago not earning anything close to the current wages.
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In some cases, players have had to rely on their appearances per season in order to meet bonuses that made up a large part of their deals, something that ex-Premier League player Onuoha has revealed details about.
Onuoha, who made 188 appearances in the Premier League, started his career at Manchester City before enjoying spells at Sunderland, Queens Park Rangers and Real Salt Lake.
And during a conversation with Ben Foster, Onuoha revealed exactly how much he was paid during his time playing for QPR.
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Speaking on the Fozcast, he said: "Money's never been my driver, I've been paid well, but I'm not really bothered by it. If it's enough, it's enough.
"I was on probably about a couple of million a year at QPR when I first joined and then it was going up. Then in the last years it was was probably like £500,000 or something."
But towards the end of his time at the club, this number went down further, as the club offered him a contract that mostly relied on him making a set number of appearances.
"Then in the deal that they offered me, it was around £2,500 a week, subsidised by an appearance bonus that was like four or five times," Onuoha added.
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Onuoha then called out clubs for putting players on similar pay as you play deals that rely on them getting a set number of appearances, only to ensure that they don't reach that number each season.
For this reason, he admitted that he decided to leave QPR and join Major League Soccer's Real Salt Lake in September 2018.
The defender made 50 appearances for the American club before announcing his retirement from playing professional football following Salt Lake's 2020 season.