Forgot billing in the car! That’s how strange his salary at Manchester City came to light

The clubs usually keep a secret out of what the top kickers earn. It’s only stupid if the player himself publishes the numbers.

‘Personal / Confidential’ is usually written on the envelopes in which pay slips are sent. From the point of view of most employees, how much someone earns is nobody’s business. Especially not when it comes to large amounts. Raheem Sterling appears to be taking things a little easier – or he’s just being extremely forgetful.

In September 2019, the winger, who is currently under contract with Chelsea, was still playing for Manchester City. At the time, he brought his luxury car to the workshop – and simply left his payslip lying openly in the vehicle. No big surprise that a mechanic would take an interest in writing. And no surprise that he took a photo of the note, which found its way to the public via social media.

The monthly base salary was listed as £708,333, which equates to annual earnings of £8.5 million. So far, so normal for a Premier League star. More interesting was the fact that Sterling also picked up a loyalty bonus, most likely for his 2018 renewal with the Citizens. Because this was £1.5 million, more than double his base salary. So in total he earned over £2.2million in September 2019 – certainly not a bad month for Sterling.

Sterling paid around £5.5million in taxes

However, there is a catch: if you earn a lot, you also have to pay a lot of taxes. Sterling was no different. In the end, he was paid ‘only’ around 1.16 million pounds. By the time he visited the workshop in 2019, he had already paid around £5.5 million in taxes.

It is not clear whether Chelsea FC took advantage of these well-known facts when convincing Sterling to make a move in the summer of 2022. But it could well be that the Blues should actually thank a car mechanic from Manchester after the successful negotiations.