If you want your son to be very, very rich, forget about football and get him interested in steel manufacturing, mining, pharmaceuticals or packaging.

According to the Sunday Times Rich List 2008, Lakshmi Mittal, the steel baron and the richest man in the UK, is worth £27,700 million. Frank Lampard, the Chelsea and England midfield player, has to make ends meet with £19 million.

Football players are supposed to be astronomically wealthy, but David Beckham – the richest player in the world – is only the 616th richest person in the UK. Thanks to television money and our love affair with the beautiful game you can make a fortune from running around and kicking a ball, but don’t expect to be rubbing shoulders with Bill Gates or Warren Buffett.

Here is our list of Britain's 25 richest players under 30 - the men who keep Bentley dealerships in business, the men who earn more in a week than you do in a year, the men who think the credit crunch is a new breakfast cereal.

= 21. William Gallas (Arsenal), £6 million - France defender is about to start his eighth season in English football which means that his bank balance is looking very healthy. Earns £70,000 a week at the Emirates Stadium after controversial departure from Chelsea two years ago.

= 21. Cesc Fabregas (Arsenal), £6 million - Dynamic midfield player who is set to add to his fortune after impressive performances for Spain at Euro 2008. Earns about £50,000 a week at the Emirates Stadium and has multi-million pound deal with Nike.

= 21. Shaun Wright-Phillips (Chelsea), £6 million - Jose Mourinho really did think that Wright-Phillips was worth £21 million and the peripheral pint-sized winger really has been earning £65,000 a week for the past three years.

= 21. Jamie Carragher (Liverpool), £6 million - Anfield legend who earns £80,000 a week and owns an award-winning restaurant in Merseyside.

= 21. Fernando Torres (Liverpool), £6 million - Spain hotshot who has confirmed his status as one of the best strikers in the world since £26.5 million transfer from Atletico Madrid to Liverpool last summer. Earns £90,000 a week at Anfield and another £1.5 million a year from commercial deals in the UK and Spain.

20. Louis Saha (Manchester United), £7 million - He shoots, he falls over, he leaves the pitch on a stretcher. Nothing has gone right for the injury-prone France forward since he arrived at Old Trafford in 2004 but he has been banking £45,000 a week.

19. Jonathan Woodgate (Tottenham Hotspur), £8 million - Another player who seems to have spent most of his career counting his cash in the treatment room. Earns about £60,000 a week at White Hart Lane and yes, he did play for Real Madrid – very occasionally.

= 16. Robbie Keane (Liverpool), £9 million - Has a Carling Cup winners’ medal at home and has enjoyed the financial benefits from five moves, including recent £19 million transfer from White Hart Lane to Anfield (depending on the signing-on fee, Keane will have moved up the list).

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