Football in Nigeria has developed in recent years with some Nigerians playing in different European countries, and earning a huge amount of money in salaries weekly. This is an article on the richest Nigerian footballers.
Playing football now goes beyond just fun as the sport has proven to be a very lucrative venture for stakeholders. Nowadays, lots of sponsors, businessmen, and lovers of the game pump millions of dollars into the game for profit or simply also for their satisfaction.
Football has the heart of many and it’s a common saying to “put your money where your heart is.”
Fans travel far and wide to watch their favourite teams play the game. Some fans are passionate enough to even go as far as shedding tears when their favourites lose a match.
It is no longer just a game for both the fans and the players and this has elevated the status of footballers from regular people to some of the most celebrated humans in the society.
Nigeria boasts of some of the richest football players in Africa and most of them do not hesitate in showing off their million-dollar assets.
Let us look at the richest Nigerian footballers in 2020, their net worth, and others.
Criteria for picking the richest Nigerian footballers
To find out who the richest footballers are in Nigeria in 2020, we took into account the players weekly pay, endorsements and media report.
Given the above criteria, you will definitely find that our selection of the top 10 richest footballers in Nigeria is fair and accurate based on available public information.
Read on to find the names of our top 10 richest footballers in the country.
A word of caution, we cannot verify all the figures quoted, where available, we quoted the source of income for the footballers on our list.
10. Alex Iwobi
Alexander Chuka Iwobi is a Nigerian professional footballer born on 3rd May 1996 and he made it to the list of richest footballers in Nigeria at number 10.
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Iwobi, who plays as a forward for Premier League club Everton and the Nigerian national team was also once an Arsenal player.
He was part of Arsene Wenger’s squad in Arsenal during his time at the club where he spent four years.
At Arsenal, he earned a weekly salary of €76,923 (about £68,661.80), according to Wfoot. He currently earns a weekly salary of £50,000 in Everton. Iwobi’s annual salary is £2.6 million according to Spotrac.
However, at the time of the Everton deal in the summer of 2018, The Sun reported that it was worth £70,000 per week for the Nigerian winger, which is substantially higher than the £50,000 figure reported by Spotrac.
Alex Iwobi’s cars and properties
Alex Iwobi acquired a property in Lagos, Nigeria. The exact location of the property is unknown but from pictures, it is a big house.
Out of Nigeria, Alex lives with his parents in England, which helps him to cut the costs of spending so much money on accommodation and which suggests that the footballer is very savvy with his money.
Read Also: Alex Iwobi Biography: Early life, Jay-Jay Okocha, net worth, club and country career & more
9. Kelechi Iheanacho
Kelechi Iheanacho makes it to the list of richest Nigerian footballers at number nine. He is also one of the youngest footballers on the list. He has had a good career so far.
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He played for Manchester City and is now playing for Leicester City in England.
Currently, Iheanacho earns a weekly salary of £115,000, according to multiple reports but Spotrac reports that Kelechi Iheanocho’s weekly salary is £60,000. During his two years in Manchester City, he earned a weekly salary of £85,000 pounds, making him one of the richest young footballers from Nigeria. However, Spotrac put his earnings during the 2016/2017 season, when the player was still a Manchester City member, at £2,600,000 (about £50,000 per week).
Iheanacho’s cars and properties
Iheanacho owns a big mansion in Manchester worth over (N8 million), and he is also currently building a big Mansion in Lagos state, Nigeria.
The Imo state born football star drives a Rolls Royce, BMW i8 worth NGN 12 million, a Mercedes C300 worth NGN 18 million, and a Range Rover too.
8. Victor Anichebe
Victor Anichebe played football as one of the finest strikers in England. He rose the ranks and went on to play in Asia and other parts of Europe in the later stages of his career.
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Victor Anichebe played in three different clubs in England including Everton. He was at Everton for nine years, West Bromwich Albion for three years, and spent just one year in Sunderland.
Playing in England as well as China helped Anichebe acquire a lot of wealth, which raised his ranking as one of the richest footballers in Nigeria.
He once dated one of billionaire Otedola’s daughters – DJ Cuppy. She lavished him with gifts and cars.
Victor Anichebe’s cars and properties
He drives a white Mercedes Benz G Wagon worth NGN42 million!
The former Everton striker built a mansion in his hometown. In 2017, he shared some pictures of the house when it was under construction on his social media pages.
7. Emmanuel Emenike
Emenike became quite famous after the 2013 African Nations Cup as a member of the. Nigerian Super Eagles.
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Emenike is married to Iheoma Nnadi, an ex-beauty queen. The couple tied the knot on 26 May 2018. They have two children together.
Emmanuel Emenike’s cars and properties
He is reported to own multi-million dollar luxury homes in Dubai, London, and of course his homeland, Nigeria.
He owns a NGN45 million custom-made Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon and Range Rover Sport SUV.
6. Ahmed Musa
Ahmed Musa who plays in Al-Nassr, Saudi Arabia was signed from Leicester city FC for about NGN8 billion. He deserves his place in this list of richest Nigerian footballers.
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His welcome video also has the highest number of views for any player in the club.
Ahmed Musa has been married twice. He was first married to Jamila Musa, with whom he had 2 children, but they got divorced over alleged domestic violence.
There were rumours that Ahmed Musa had been involved with Juliet Ejue, while still married to Jamila. And in 2017, after his divorce from Jamila, he got married to Juliet. In 2018, Juliet gave birth to a baby boy called Ibrahim.
Ahmed Musa’s cars and properties
Some of Ahmed Musa’s cars are Range Rover Sport ($50,000) which he bought in 2013, A Range Rover Velar ($60,500) which he bought in 2018, Mercedes Benz G-Wagon costing $127,650.
He owns a filling station in Kano state. He was brought up in Jos, Nigeria, so his first port of call was to build a mansion in his childhood city.
He moved out of the first mansion and built a new mansion with updated security gadgets and personnel. His mansion in Jos, includes a swimming pool, a gym, a mosque, a football field that has a synthetic pitch.
