‘Big Increase’—How Bukayo Saka’s New Salary Compares to Arsenal, Premier League Stars

Saka is set to sign a new contract at Arsenal which will keep him at the club until 2031.

Bukayo Saka’s new contract is set to be announced. / ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP/Getty Images

Bukayo Saka’s new five-year deal at Arsenal will reportedly make him the club’s highest earner and one of the best-paid players across the Premier League.

The Gunners academy graduate has been known to keep a picture of himself playing grass roots football pinned on his fridge. The 24-year-old comes across as the same grounded character, but is operating in a different financial stratosphere to even most of his footballing peers, let alone the average person.

News broke this week that, after relaxed negotiations, Arsenal had crushed the faint aspirations of countless onlookers to move into the final stages of agreeing fresh terms with Saka. The deal is set to run until the summer of 2031 and The Guardian claim that his weekly salary will now be in the region of £300,000 ($402,000).

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Saka was thought to earn £200,000 per week on his previous contract, which was set to expire in 2027, representing a swollen 50% increase.

The same report lists Arsenal’s previous top earner to be Kai Havertz, who is thought to collect in the region of £280,000 per week. Saka will now hold the distinction of pay day master in north London, and not undeservedly so. Despite still being only 24, the homegrown winger is already one of the team’s clear leaders, routinely wearing the captain’s armband if first-choice skipper Martin Ødegaard should be unavailable.

Bukayo Saka (left) reportedly surpassed Kai Havertz in earnings. / GLYN KIRK/AFP/Getty Images

The Norway international is set to be one of the next in line for fresh terms as his contract expires in 2028, while Declan Rice has been billed as the extension priority.

The all-action midfielder is arguably the club’s most important and best player, transforming the complexion of the team with his inclusion. The drop-off between Saka and Noni Madueke, or Ødegaard and Eberechi Eze, is nowhere near as extreme as the difference in performance when Rice is not on the pitch.

Saka doesn’t quite hold the distinction of being Arsenal’s highest-paid player ever—that honour reportedly belongs to the divisive figure of Mesut Özil, who still had six months remaining on a deal thought to be worth £350,000 per week when he left the club under a cloud in January 2021.

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How Bukayo Saka’s Salary Compares to Erling Haaland, Mohamed Salah

Erling Haaland (left) and Mohamed Salah are widely considered to be the Premier League’s two highest earners. / Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images

Saka’s salary is staggering but it doesn’t stack up against the division’s most highly rewarded figures.

For all its faults, football is largely a meritocracy. The teams that pay their players the most tend to win in the long run, implying that the highest earners are the game’s standout performers. Erling Haaland and Mohamed Salah have shared the last three Premier League Golden Boots and, unsurprisingly, are widely considered to be in possession of the division’s most lucrative contracts.

After much to-ing and fro-ing, Salah famously penned a new two-year extension at Liverpool last April. The Telegraph reported at the time that the 33-year-old would stand to earn up to £480,000 per week if all bonuses are triggered. It’s been something of a middling season for the ageing forward, yet a weekly base rate thought to be in the region of £400,000 still comfortably exceeds Saka’s new terms.

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Haaland has done his best to achieve every target imaginable during another rampant scoring campaign. Manchester City’s relentless talisman put pen to paper on a staggering nine-and-a-half-year deal last January which is thought to earn him £500,000 per week, according to The Guardian.

Saka isn’t even the Premier League’s highest-earning Englishman. Jack Grealish’s City contract entitles him to a similar £300,000 per week while Chelsea exile Raheem Sterling can point to a weekly salary of £325,000, per The Times. Given neither have been capped for England by Thomas Tuchel and are yet to play a single minute of Premier League football for their paymasters this season, big salaries don’t always lead to big results.

As the legendary former Juventus chairman Gianni Agnelli once mused: “Poor footballers are certainly overpaid. The good ones never earn enough.”

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