Roy Keane has revealed the eye-watering sum he was paid while at Man United

 Footballers for the longest time have always been well paid. Even in the days of Georgie Best players received plentiful wages for the time.

But even in recent years it’s hard to fathom how footballers are paid that much. With the recent influx of players heading to Saudi Arabia to play in the Pro League, wages have reached yet another high with stars like Cristiano Ronaldo, Riyad Mahrez and Karim Benzema all earning close to seven-figures a week.

Therefore it’s interesting to take a look back and see what players used to ‘humbly’ earn in their hay day and on the latest episode of Stick to Football the crew had a look at Roy Keane’s deals while at Old Trafford.

The Premier League hall of famer brought in some of his old contracts for a ‘show and tell’ segment of the episode which saw Jamie Carragher bring in a signed Franco Baresi AC Milan jersey and Ian Wright brought in his motorbike helmet.

When it came around to Roy, the Corkonian brought a few jerseys from his career, like a Nottingham Forest FA Cup final jersey from 1991, an old Ireland jersey and some family photos. He also decided to bring in his old Manchester United contracts.

He was open to sharing how much he earned at the time and some of the figures even by today’s standards are still decent. The first deal he showed was from 2002 where he earned £916,000 over a period of six months. In today’s money that’s just over £1.7million a year.

He then signed a new deal in 2000 for £2.75million a year [£5million today] and that increased again in 2002 to £3million [£5.6million today] before he got his biggest contract of £3.5million a year in 2003, around £6.5millionm per year. His last contract at United was a slight decrease down to £3million [£5.3million] in 2005.

Gary Neville then showed the camera Roy’s signing bonus for that 2002 contract he signed, which was £4million in total to be paid each summer over four years from 2002 to 2005. That £4million in 2002 is worth over £7million in today’s money.

With the numbers being bandied about with players earning millions-a-week, it’s hard to believe they could be earning as much in a week as a player like Roy Keane earned in a year. There’s not many players now who were as good as Keano was in his pomp.

Elsewhere in the podcast, the star footballer showed off his softer side.

As a player, manager or pundit, Keane has not been one to show much emotion on screen – other than his trademark anger or the odd chuckle.

However, the former Manchester United captain let a few tears creep through his tough exterior after getting emotional about an old family photo.

While showing off old memorabilia, such as cup final shirts and his old contracts, Keane produced a photo of his parents at Wembley following one of his cup finals.

The Corkman said: ‘You’re on about photos, look at that there.

‘You’re on about family, the ups and downs of football, but when you see your family at Wembley after you’ve won a big game.’

Keane began to trail off as Ian Wright commented that it was a nice photo.

Wright then put his hand on Keane’s shoulder while he was visibly fighting back tears.

Wright added ‘it’s beautiful’ as Keane switched back into podcast mode, showing another photo of him in a United shirt as a kid and quipping: ‘The Spurs one must have been sold out.’