Carlo Ancelotti Tops Highest Paid Football Managers With Brazil Move
Carlo Ancelotti tops the highest paid football managers discussion after leaving Real Madrid and taking Brazil. OneFootball’s 2026 ranking of the 10 highest-paid managers in world football also shows three Premier League managers in the mix and only seven of the 10 working in Europe.
Ancelotti And Brazil
Ancelotti was earning a reported £9.6million per year at Real Madrid before he moved on. He took a slight pay cut to manage Brazil, which still left him as the highest-paid international manager in 2025.
The shift is the sharpest line in the ranking. It puts a club coach who had been on one of Europe’s biggest wages into an international role while keeping him at the top of the pay conversation.
Premier League And Europe
Three Premier League managers feature in the 10 highest-paid managers in world football in 2026. That leaves four more names across Europe and three coaches making serious money elsewhere.
The spread is part of the point of the ranking. It does not just track elite club contracts; it shows how wages are split between Europe, Brazil and Saudi Arabia.
Jaissle, Spalletti, Conte, Enrique
Matthias Jaissle is the youngest manager on the list at 38, and Al-Ahli picked him up in 2023. He has since won the AFC Champions League Elite back-to-back with the Saudi Pro League side.
Luciano Spalletti was hired by Juventus last summer and has them fourth in the table despite missing the Champions League last 16. Antonio Conte won the Scudetto in 2025, though Napoli bowed out of this season’s Champions League in the league phase.
Luis Enrique adds another line to the ranking after leading PSG to their first-ever UCL title last year. Nasser Al-Khelaifi said Enrique told him, “You're going to see your team, the club, your team playing amazing football. You're going to enjoy it,” and also, “I want to play offensive football.”
The ranking lands with a clear message for anyone tracking managerial money: the biggest wages are no longer concentrated in one league or one continent. Europe still holds most of the top 10, but the rest of the list shows how far club football’s pay scale now stretches.
