FIFA has risen to become one of the world’s top esports titles, attracting players from every corner of the planet. Games are being played every second of the day, by teenagers in their bedrooms, all the way up to professional players fighting it out in international tournaments.
These professional FIFA players are at the very pinnacle of the game, but how much exactly do they earn? And how do their earnings compare to the players in Europe’s top leagues?
Top 30 FIFA 21 Gamers
The top FIFA players were hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, which saw tournaments canceled and earning potential slashed. The earnings are much lower than in 2019, with the top earner on FIFA 21, DullenMike, earning just $15,000 over the year. Last year, the top earner was TeKkz, who scooped over $550,000 in prize money.
If DullenMike had played a game every day in 2020, he would have earned a total of $105,000 –which is still less than TekKz would have earned in 2019 for just playing a single game every week. Overall, DullenMike has now earned $103,768 across all versions of the FIFA franchise.
Germany Dominating Rankings
Last year, the United Kingdom sat atop the rankings for the highest-earning FIFA players, mainly thanks to the stellar year had by TeKkz. They were knocked off the top in 2020, however, as you can see in the infographic below…
Germany has now taken the number one spot, with total earnings of $23,750 over the year, most of which was won by the world’s top-earning player for 2020, DullenMike. Israel came in second, with earnings of $10,000, while Sweden took third place, with total earnings of just $7,500.
In terms of average earnings, Israel comes first – they have just one player in the list, who made $10,000. In contrast, despite being top overall, the nine German players averaged just $2,639 over the year.
COVID-19 Hits FIFA Hard
There’s one reason, and one reason only, why FIFA earnings were so low in 2020 – COVID-19. The global pandemic caused the cancellations of almost all live events, with EA canceling all live events for the year back in March. Online events continued, but these are minor compared to the huge live events FIFA fans are used to watching every year.
Vaccinations are now being rolled out throughout the world, so there is hope that FIFA tournaments in the second half of 2021 will be able to go ahead, although this is by no means guaranteed.
DullenMike: FIFA 21’s Top Player
The number one FIFA player for 2020 was DullenMike, but who exactly is this FIFA superstar? Check out a few key facts about him below…
- Real name: Dylan Neuhausen
- Date of birth: June 21st, 2002
- Nationality: German
- Team: Nomen Est Omen
- Former teams: SK Gaming, 1. FC Köln, VfL Wolfsburg
- Other IDs: None
His biggest prize to date while playing FIFA 21 came in January when he came first in the FIFA 21 Global Series EU Qualifier 2 Xbox. Before this, his biggest prize was the $50,000 he won for coming first in the FUT Champions Cup 2019 January.
Other large prizes won by DullenMike throughout his career include $7,500 for finishing eighth at the FUT 20 Champions Cup Stage 1 – Bucharest and €5,000 for coming fourth in the Virtual Bundesliga 19-20 Finals.
FIFA vs. World’s Top Soccer Leagues
In previous years, the huge amounts of prize money won by FIFA players has seen them rival the earnings of some big-name soccer stars. This wasn’t the case in 2020, however, as stars in the world’s big leagues continued to earn their weekly salaries, even while COVID-19 canceled everything. FIFA players, on the other hand, saw their earnings come to a halt – no tournaments meant no prize money.
If you look at the world’s top leagues, you’ll see that DullenMike earned around the same as a player in Italy’s Serie D. When it comes to comparisons with the Premier League, the world’s highest paying soccer league, the average player earned 264x more than DullenMike over the year.
La Liga players earned 170x more, while Serie A players earned 149x more. Players in Germany’s top league, the Bundesliga, earned an average of 132x more than DullenMike, while it was 87x more for players in Ligue 1.
Methodology
To come up with this page, we’ve used figures from the reputable eSports Earnings website, which allowed us to find the top 30 FIFA players for 2020 and how much they earned in the year. We then thoroughly researched average salaries for soccer players in Europe’s biggest football-playing nations.
By researching the aforementioned facts, we were able to easily and accurately compare the earnings of FIFA players with the earnings of soccer players throughout Europe.
Sources
- https://www.esportsearnings.com
- https://fifa-esports.gamepedia.com/DullenMIKE
- https://www.kicker.de/dullenmike-unterschreibt-beim-vfl-wolfsburg-754368/artikel
