Rich 100: Who are the highest-paid players in the AFL?

While much of the game’s money trail goes almost unnoticed and unreported, the public fascination over the salaries of the 800-plus AFL footballers has skyrocketed in recent years.

Some contracts are front or back-ended, most deals have an in-built set of bonuses and match payment figures that can push the figures significantly up or down depending on performance, and some contracts are structured in a way to ward off potential poaching raids from cashed-up opposition clubs.

SCROLL DOWN FOR PART 1 OF THE 2022 RICH 100 AND CHECK BACK TOMORROW TO SEE FOOTY’S TOP 50 EARNERS

This makes any assessment of AFL pay packets largely an inexact science.

The Herald Sun’s annual Rich 100 – a comprehensive examination of the best-paid 100 players as well as those who narrowly missed out – does its best to dispel some of those myths.

That’s why compiling the AFL salaries list required hundreds of calls to industry figures and those “in the know”, as well as weeks of cross-checking, assessment and reassessment.

The Rich 100 figures are presented in $100,000 bands to reflect the fact many salaries are dependent on in-season performances with bonuses that may or may not be met in any given season.

Players remain acutely sensitive about their pay rates, but as this 2022 list shows, many of the game’s best players take far less money than a lot of us would believe in order to keep premiership lists together or to accept long-term security within their club.

Critics who would contest the nature of this exercise would concede almost every single contract brokered by clubs comes with wild and immediate speculation about its value.

And AFL House releases regular updates about the yearly pay breakdown of players and the updated free agency lists to its own non-independent media arm.

The Rich 100 attempts to put those salaries into perspective and provide context and accuracy around the most talked-about and speculated deals in the game.

Part 1 today reveals the players listed 51-100 on the list. Tomorrow the top 50 salaries are revealed, here. As with each year of this exercise, there are a number of shocks about who has made the list and who hasn’t. See the list below and have your say.

Originally published as AFL Rich 100: Who are the top-paid players in 2022?