Manchester City’s Yaya Toure listed by Forbes as highest earning African player

England-based players dominate the list of top earners from the continent in European football as brother Kolo also appears, along with Chelsea trio and Adebayor

FA Cup Semi Final- Manchester City v Manchester United, Yaya Toure

Manchester City midfielder Yaya Toure has been named on top of the earnings list of Africa’s foreign legion in a Forbesarticle.

Earning an estimated $13.3million annually, Toure is ahead of other great African players such as Samuel Eto’o, Didier Drogba and Michael Essien. The Ivorian is joined on the list by his brother Kolo, who also plays for City.

Out of the eight players listed, only two do not play in England. Malian Frederic Kanoute plays his football in Spain while Cameroonian Eto’o plays at Inter.

It is also interesting to note that three of the six Premier League players are signed to big spending Manchester City while the other three are with Chelsea.

Four of the players are winners of the African Player of the Year award while the others have at one time or another been nominated for the title. Nigeria’s John Mikel Obi has never been nominated, but won the young player award in 2005.

1) Yaya Toure (Manchester City and Ivory Coast) - $13.3m

2) Samuel Eto’o (Inter and Cameroon) - $12m

3) Emmanuel Adebayor (Togo and Manchester City) - $12m

4) Kolo Toure (Manchester City and Ivory Coast) - $10.3m

5) Frederic Kanoute (Sevilla and Mali) - $8.6m

6) Didier Drogba (Chelsea and Ivory Coast) - $8m

7) John Mikel Obi (Chelsea and Nigeria) - $5.8m

8) Michael Essien (Chelsea and Ghana) - $5.5m

ROMAN ABRAMOVICH’S NEW BOY ANDRE VILLAS-BOAS IN £80M CHELSEA START

Neymar is a £40m target for Chelsea

ANDRE VILLAS-BOAS will take over as Chelsea manager in the next 24 hours and is targeting an incredible £80million worth of new players to join his blue revolution.

He was in London last night and is expected to be confirmed by tomorrow as Roman Abramovich's seventh manager of the past seven seasons. Andre Villas-Boas, 33, wants to bring £26million Colombian striker Radamel Falcao with him from Porto – and also highly rated £14m midfielder Joao Moutinho.

And last night super agent Pini Zahavi was in Sao Paulo with Chelsea representatives ready to make a new £40m offer for Santos teenager Neymar.

Santos take on Penarol of Uruguay tonight in the second leg of the Copa Libertadores final in Sao Paulo, having drawn 0-0 in the first game in Montevideo.

Chelsea have already had a £30m bid for Brazilian Neymar turned down, but are ready to make an improved offer.

The new arrivals would throw doubt over several of Chelsea’s stars.

That includes strikers Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka, but also midfielders Michael Essien and John Obi Mikel. Villas-Boas left Porto yesterday after Chelsea agreed to pay them £13.2m compensation.

Previous favourite Guus Hiddink will be seeing out his contract with Turkey.

Chelsea are hoping to make an official announcement about their new manager soon, with Villas-Boas likely to bring in two of his Porto assistants.