Recently, the German transfer market released the top 10 list of total football revenue in 2023, with Ronaldo leading the way, ranking first with 235 million euros, Messi 122 million euros, Neymar 101 million euros ranking second and third, Mbappe ranking fourth with 99 million euros, and Benzema ranking fifth with 96 million euros. Ronaldo, Messi, and Neymar have been in the top three in football all year round, Mbappe has a huge loyalty award from Paris, and Benzema can enter the top five, mainly related to landing in the Saudi league and enjoying high salaries.
As the winner of the 2022 Ballon d'Or, Benzema received an invitation from the Saudi club Jeddah United in July last year, and finally the French superstar chose to leave Real Madrid, stay away from the top five European leagues, and play in the Saudi league, mainly because of the high salary and early entry into the pension mode.
Benzema is a Ballon d'Or superstar, and Jeddah United was able to persuade him to join, and he also offered the same annual salary of 200 million euros as Ronaldo, which is converted into 1.56 billion yuan. As last season's Saudi league champions, Jeddah United are looking to sign Karim Benzema, who will help the team defend their title.
As a result, at the end of the first half of the season, Jeddah United fell behind the top 25 points in one round of less, withdrew from the title race early, and fell to seventh, although Benzema played 24 games for the team in all competitions, contributed 15 goals and 6 assists, which seems to be not a bad statistic, but the team and fans are still very disappointed because Benzema did not perform and play the same role as Cristiano Ronaldo.
In this regard, the Saudi media compared Benzema with Ronaldo, believing that Ronaldo showed professionalism after coming to Saudi Arabia to play, but Benzema did not do anything remarkable in the game, he looked more like a VIP, but he never helped the team.
Unable to stand the criticism of fans on the Internet, Benzema directly turned off his personal social media comment function to escape the violent online violence, and even left Jeddah on the grounds of injury and played "missing".
According to statistics, Ronaldo has played 31 games for Riyadh Victory in all competitions this season, contributing 30 goals and 11 assists, including 20 goals in 18 league games, and 9 assists, while leading the league's scorer and assist lists.
In this comparison, Benzema is certainly not as good as the Portuguese superstar, and if the annual salary is less than 100 million euros, perhaps Jeddah United fans will not be so angry.