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.