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Ask the average
football fan who they feel will win the World Cup and the answer you’ll
most likely get, other than their country of origin which is normal for
those with a great dose of patriotism coursing through their veins,
will be Spain or Brazil.

A lot of neutrals
will even go for England and their army of Premier League stars, as
well as Argentina, affably led by the mercurial Lionel Messi. Some
would even go as far as staking some money on Raymond Domenech and his
under-performing French team.

But it should come
as no surprise to most observers that the above mentioned teams are
most people’s favourites for the title in South Africa, as they
undoubtedly possess the best collection of players in the tournament.
Not only are they the best, they are also the ones with the greatest
market value; the top earners in the game.

Monetary value

If the monetary
value of the players taking part in the World Cup is the only criterion
for deciding who will end up claiming the trophy on July 11, then
European champions Spain should be carting home their first ever World
Cup title as the combined value of the players they have on parade in
South Africa, led by Barcelona’s Xavi Hernandez, is just over half a
billion Euro, which is much more than the value of the Brazilian team,
who will have to be content with second place.

France, with a
combined value of 450 million Euros will settle for third spot, with
England a very close fourth, while current world champions Italy are in
the fifth position. The figures which took into consideration the
appreciation and depreciation in players’ values, as well as their
salaries and other incomes, placed both the Super Eagles and Ghana’s
Black Stars in the 14th spot with a value of 115 million Euros each,
one spot beneath Cameroon’s Indomitable Lions who are the second
highest ranked African side behind the Elephants of Cote d’Ivoire who
are just outside the top ten with a value of 180million Euros.

Algeria are ranked
a distant 24th while South Africa are only ahead of New Zealand and
North Korea have to be content with the bottom two positions of the 32
teams at the World Cup.

Capello is don The
South African coach Carlos Alberto Parreira is however the ninth
highest paid coach in the tournament with an estimated annual income of
1.2 million Euros which is a whole lot better than 170,000 Euros his
North Korean counterpart Kim Jong-Hun earns. It’s a figure that’s even
better than those of Argentina’s Diego Maradona and his compatriot
Carlos Dunga who are both on an annual salary of 800,000 Euros.

But Parreira’s
earnings, which is joint ninth with those of his contemporaries from
Australia, Cote d’Ivoire and Mexico, becomes small fries when compared
to those of England’s Fabio Capello who pockets a cool 8.8 million
Euros per annum.

Italy’s Marcelo
Lippi is a distant second behind his countryman Capello followed by
Germany’s Joachim Low and Super Eagles’ Lars Lagerback but the figures
are only based on the gross annual salary of each coach, excluding
bonuses or endorsement deals which, if had been taken into
consideration, would have seen France’s Domenech placed significantly
higher than the 20th position he occupies as he receives a bonus of
30,000 Euros per win and 15,000 Euros for a draw and also received a
prize of 1.1 million Euros following his side’s qualification for the
World Cup.