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Liverpool Manager Jurgen Klopp

Where Jurgen Klopp ranks in the highest-paid managers in world football

Jurgen Klopp is walking away from a contract that ranks him as the third highest-paid manager in world football.

The German coach has announced that he’ll depart Liverpool at the end of the 2023-24 campaign, two years earlier than his current deal with the club is due to expire. It’s reported that Klopp takes home an annual salary of €18million, which places him only behind Diego Simeone and Pep Guardiola.

The best-paid managers in the world are unsurprisingly at some of Europe’s most glamorous clubs, with the head coaches of Manchester City, Bayern Munich, Juventus, Barcelona and Real Madrid featuring at the top end alongside Klopp.

Diego Simeone might not be at the biggest club in the world, but he earns a higher salary at Atletico Madrid than any coach at any other club. Simeone is the longest-serving coach in Europe’s major leagues and has been well-remunerated for the transformative effect he’s had at the club since 2011.

The Argentinian won the La Liga title as a player in 1996 and has been immensely successful on his return. As coach he’s led Atletico to two La Liga titles and two Champions League finals, while qualifying the club for Europe’s most prestigious cup competition in every one of his full seasons at the helm.

That impact has been recognised by the Atletico hierarchy and he’s remained the best-paid coach in football over the past few years. Simeone earns a whopping €34million per year and remains contracted at the Metropolitano Stadium until 2024, having last signed an extension in 2021.

Somewhat surprising, given the Premier League’s status as the most lucrative league in Europe, only three managers of English clubs feature in the top 12 – Man City manager Pep Guardiola (a reported €22million annual salary) and Liverpool coach Jurgen Klopp (€18million) are second and third in the list respectively.

The latest inclusion on the list is Steven Gerrard, following his lucrative move to Saudi Arabia. The former Aston Villa and Rangers boss is paid an annual wage of €17.6million to manage Al-Ettifaq which blows plenty of Premier League managers out of the water. And despite the club struggling in the Saudi Pro League this season, the 43-year-old has recently put pen to paper on an extension that runs all the way to 2027.

Juventus’ Massimiliano Allegri, recently-appointed Bayern Munich boss Thomas Tuchel and Real Madrid head honcho Carlo Ancelotti are fifth, sixth and seventh respectively, which seems befitting of their reputations and their clubs’ statuses as European royalty.

Elsewhere, Xabi Alonso at Bayer Leverkusen – in his first senior coaching job – and Niko Kovac at Wolfsburg are somewhat surprising inclusions in the top 10.

Here are the 10 highest-paid managers in world football, according to Sport, with their annual salaries broken down in full:

1. Diego Simeone – €34million
2. Pep Guardiola – €22million
3. Jurgen Klopp – €18million
4. Steven Gerrard – €17.6million
5. Massimiliano Allegri – €12.8million
6. Thomas Tuchel – €12million
7. Carlo Ancelotti – €11million
8. Simone Inzaghi – €10million
9. Xabi Alonso – €5million
10. Niko Kovac – €4million


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