More than many professional footballers, Aymeric Laporte approaches his day job as an occupation like any other.

“I’m not a football addict,” the Spain international revealed during the 2022 World Cup. “Honestly, I don’t like watching matches.” Laporte was enamoured with the sport as a child but became disenchanted pretty much from the outbreak of his professional career.

Treating football like any other job, the decision to move to the Saudi Pro League where a monumental wage increase awaits becomes a no-brainer – if you put aside the myriad of human rights violations the Kingdom has been accused of, that is.

Laporte evidently had a clear enough conscience to complete a £25m move from reigning European and Premier League champions Manchester City to last season’s Pro League runners-up Al Nassr.

Here’s how Laporte’s much-improved salary compares to his new colleague Cristiano Ronaldo and the lucrative figures that will be milling around the water cooler.

Laporte is expected to earn an outrageous £21m-per-year, which equates to around £400,000-per-week playing for Al Nassr.

As City’s best-paid player, Kevin De Bruyne earns a similar sum but his salary is subject to UK taxation laws. The Saudi government is hardly strapped for cash, removing the necessity of income tax in the Kingdom; while Laporte can take home his full weekly wage of £400,000, De Bruyne is left with around £220,000 after HMRC take their slice.

Such a generous pay packet ultimately convinced Laporte to swap the Etihad for Riyadh but the centre-back is earning peanuts compared to teammates new and old.

Laporte played 123 games alongside Riyad Mahrez at Manchester City and lost just 13. A month before the Spaniard sloped off to Saudi, Mahrez completed his move to newly promoted Al Ahli.

Much like Al Nassr, Mahrez’s new employers are backed by the nation’s Public Investment Fund – which is also the majority shareholder at Newcastle United. Mahrez earned slightly more than Laporte at City (£160,000-per-week) but is reportedly raking in £45m per annum at Al Ahli, £24m more than his former City teammate.

Al Nassr’s captain and self-appointed talisman earns around £177m-per-year – more than eight times Laporte’s salary.

Ronaldo helped prove some of his worth with a game-changing contribution in the final of the Arab Club Champions Cup at the start of the season, scoring a brace to win the club’s first trophy since the Saudi Super Cup behind closed doors in 2021.

As the side’s sole star arrival midway through the previous season, Ronaldo’s 14 goals from his first 16 league games was not enough to win the 2022/23 Pro League title. Laporte has not been the only Champions League winner added to Al Nassr’s roster this summer in search of domestic glory.

In each of Sadio Mane’s last two starts against a team including Laporte, he scored. Now the Senegalese star can count the former City centre-back as an Al Nassr teammate.

Mane earns considerably less than Ronaldo but still commands a higher wage than Laporte, clocking in at £34m per annum. The former Liverpool forward was supposedly disinterested in a move to the Pro League as recently as June before embarking upon a U-turn.

Yet, it was not money that changed Mane’s mind. “My mum is Muslim like me,” he explained. “She was the first to vote for me to go there and my whole family was excited for me to come here, so it was not hard – it is important to my faith.”

Forward-thinking players almost universally earn more money than their defensive counterparts – this is as true in the Premier League, where a defender makes 31% less than an attacker, as it is in Saudi.

And so, to get a better sense of Laporte’s £21m annual wage, it should be compared to another centre-back. Kalidou Koulibaly was an early arrival to the Kingdom when regional behemoths Al Hilal whisked the ageing defender away from Chelsea.

While Laporte, still in his prime at 29, had suitors from a range of Champions League clubs this summer, Koulibaly’s exit was hailed as a great coup in west London given the underwhelming nature of his solitary season at Chelsea. Yet, Koulibaly reportedly earns in the region of £26m-per-year, 21% more than the theoretically more valuable asset.

By the standards of a normal job – which football is for the Spaniard – Laporte is earning a king’s ransom in the Kingdom. Yet, compared to the rest of the division, Al Nassr have got themselves something close to a bargain.

On this week’s edition of Talking Transfers, part of the 90min podcast network, Scott Saunders is joined by Toby Cudworth and Graeme Bailey to discuss Mohamed Salah’s huge offer from the Saudi Pro League, Liverpool’s stance on a sale, Ryan Gravenberch, Matheus Nunes, Romelu Lukaku, Folarin Balogun & more! If you can’t see this embed, click here to listen to the podcast!