Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy saw his wage increase by a staggering amount during his first season as a Premier League player.
Vardy, 38, will leave Leicester City at the end of the season, having scored 200 goals in 500 appearances for the Foxes, which helped them secure a Premier League title and an FA Cup crown during his time at the club.
But he took an alternative route to the Premier League and didn’t make his top-flight debut until the age of 27 in August 2014.
Just a few years earlier, he worked as a barman, a joiner and in a factory supplying medical equipment while playing for non-league Stockbridge Park Steeles picking up £30 per week for his on-pitch efforts.
The forward soon advanced up the leagues, signing for Halifax in 2010 before moving to Fleetwood Town in 2011.
Jamie Vardy in 2014 (Credit:Getty)
Just one year later, he became the first footballer signed from non-league football for a fee of £1 million when he moved to Leicester, who competed in the Championship at the time.
And his switch from Fleetwood to Leicester saw his wage increase by 900 percent as he explained in his 2016 book titled ‘Jamie Vardy: From Nowhere, My Story‘.
“The three-year contract I signed was worth a basic £8,000 per week… adding a zero to what I’d been earning [£800 per week] at Fleetwood,” said Vardy.
“With another £2,000 per week in the form of a loyalty payment, I was able to buy the sort of things I’d never been able to afford before. Or in the case of the three-bedroom penthouse apartment I moved into across the road from the King Power Stadium, rent somewhere like I’d never been able to before.
“It was a life-changing amount of money, and I felt lucky to have it – but it wasn’t the most important thing to me, I just wanted to play professional football.”
Jamie Vardy against Arsenal during his Premier League debut (Credit:Getty)
By 2014, Vardy was a Premier League player and had penned another four-year deal at the East Midlands club, with his wage further increasing by 275 percent.
“Just after the opening day draw against Everton, I signed a new contract committing myself to Leicester for another four years up until 2018 and taking my pay up to about £30,000 per week,” Vardy revealed. “I was now earning more in a week than I was in a year at Trulife [factory he worked in].”
