The 2024/25 season saw Europe’s most lethal forwards find the net with regularity, but a deeper look into their salaries offers surprising truths. By calculating earnings per league goal for each of the Golden Boot Top 10, clubs can now see which players truly offered value.

Among the costliest strikers were Erling Haaland, Robert Lewandowski, and Kylian Mbappe, each breaching the €1 million mark per goal. Haaland led this list, with Manchester City paying a staggering €1.47 million per strike from their star forward.

Haaland, Mbappe Top Worst Value List
Barcelona’s Robert Lewandowski was close behind, costing €1.23 million for each of his 27 La Liga goals. Real Madrid’s Kylian Mbappe, despite finishing top scorer with 31 goals, still ranked among the least efficient—each of his goals came at just over €1 million.

Mohamed Salah’s 29-goal campaign powered Liverpool to the Premier League title, but each came at a price of €849,895. Harry Kane offered slightly better value for Bayern Munich, with 26 Bundesliga goals averaging €961,538 apiece in his second season.

Biereth and Gyokeres Prove Best Investments
The real bargains were Viktor Gyokeres and Mika Biereth, who finished with 39 and 24 goals respectively. Gyokeres, earning €2.4 million, cost Sporting Lisbon just €61,538 per goal in their title-winning season.

Biereth, who played for both Sturm Graz and Monaco, earned only €1.15 million and delivered 24 goals—translating to just €47,917 per strike. These returns made them the only two in the top 10 whose goals came at under €100,000 each.

Mateo Retegui of Atalanta also performed strongly, averaging €112,800 for each of his 25 Serie A goals. Further down, Omar Marmoush and Alexander Isak delivered 22 and 23 goals respectively, both under €850,000 per strike.

The full report by Sportingpedia can be found here.