Each season, Portuguese website, Futebol Finance produces a fascinating, but unfortunately, rather blandly presented list of the players it claims to be the top earners in World football (click for link).   Each year we pour over the data and try to pull out some interesting facts and figures about the players within the list and the clubs they play for, and essentially try to bring to life the brilliant information they have supplied.

Inspired by their list, in February 2010 we produced our first ever infographic, based on their research, and it has proven to be one of the most popular visualisations we have ever produced, still accounting for a significant chunk of traffic visiting the Visual Evolution website. Recently, they released their figures for 2011, and they have extended the number of players from 50, up to the 100 top earners in World football.

In response to this, we are now pleased to present to you our own findings from the data.