Becoming a legionnaire is perhaps the dream of many young footballers all over the world.

Football has passed the stage of being a sport for fun and competition, it is now a business and a money-generating activity filled with fortunes. Not all the sources are clean money though as the sport is still suffering blatant money laundering schemes, however, at players’ level these sinister plots are invisible.

Iranian players have played in Europe from the onset. After the 1998 Fifa World Cup, the biggest number of Iranian players transferred to European leagues, specifically the Bundesliga. With the failure to qualify for the World Cup there were fewer suitors for Iranian players,  but the migration never completely stopped.

There are around 50 Iranian players exercising their profession outside of Iran. Europe, Persian Gulf states, and to a lesser extent the Far East have been the favorite destination.

The top earners are those who are successful and play in the European leagues. The Premier League is the richest league in the world and hence it is not a surprise that the top Iranian money earner comes from that league. Alireza Jahanbakhsh, who has been mostly a bench warmer in Brighton & Hove Albion, is the Top Earner of all Iranian footballers with a salary of nearly 4 million dollars per annum.

Iran’s best player of the season 2020/21 by far is Sardar Azmoun, yet he earns less than Jahanbakhsh. Taremi comes third in the table, despite his brilliant season with Porto, he earns half what Jahanbaksh earns with Brighton. Note that Brighton just avoided relegation in England while Porto defeated Chelsea, the current titleholder of the Champions League by the brilliant overhead kick by Taremi, ended the season in second place in Portugal.

In 4th position in the table is Saman Ghoddos who plays his football in the second tier club Brantford. The team from West London has won promotion to the premier league now,