Poorest Player in La Liga Primera Wins €150,000 on Lottery

By: Daryl | December 23rd, 2008

If you’re a professional footballer then you’ve already won the lottery. And a story about a mega-rich playboy footballer winning the actual lottery would be enough to make me vomit. But in Mario Martinez’s case, we can maybe make an exception.

He might be a La Liga Primera Division player, but the Numancia midfielder – famous for scoring the winner in Numancia’s 1-0 win over Barca this season – is apparently the poorest paid player in Spain’s top division. According to Sid Lowe anyway.

“For Mario, boys and girls, is poor. Not proper poor – he doesn’t rattle a tin at passers-by, drink Meths or shout incoherently whilst slowly soiling his slacks – but football poor.

For Mario is the worst paid player in primera. He’s got the carefully crafted spiky front and mullet back combo, he’s got a red Audi, and he’s got the CK boxers, tight Versace T-shirt and gold chain but he lives at home with his little brother and his mum, who runs the local false leg and fake hip emporium.

He gets paid €120,000 a year. That’s 83 – eight-three – times less than Raúl, 75 times less than Samuel Eto’o … Thierry Henry earns more in a week – almost twice as much more, in fact – than Mario does in a year.”

Recent figures in Marca actually put that figure closer to €200,000 per year. So he’s not Tiny Tim, but he’s still – as Sid Lowe put it – football poor.

So here’s a Christmas tale to warm your hearts: Yesterday Mario Martinez more or less doubled his annual salary when he won €150,000 on the Spanish Christmas lottery.

“I never play the lottery except the Christmas one because it’s especially exciting,” he told Marca.

The win doesn’t mean Martinez will be shopping for Christmas presents at the same stores as Raul, Henry, Eto’o et al. But it at least it proves that there’s some fairness left in the world. If only for people who are already extremely lucky and well paid in the first place.