A number of years ago, a payslip allegedly belonging to Carlos Tevez was leaked online, to much amusement.
No one could say definitively if it was real, but the figures involved were certainly within the parameters of what he was understood to be earning.
His net salary at Manchester City purportedly stood at more than £400,000 a month, while almost the same amount went to the government in the form of PAYE (330k) and national insurance (8k).
Regardless of its veracity, the ensuing feeding frenzy on Twitter demonstrated the continuing fascination among fans about the astronomical remuneration of those at the top of the food chain.
For Tevez was no outlier, far from it. By 2018, across the city at United, Alexis Sanchez was earning more than that a week when bonuses and endorsements were included.
Player power: Alexis Sanchez was the league’s biggest earner at Man United
The story of how these two gifted South Americans arrived at the biggest paydays in their careers is different of course, the former involving a tortuous arrangement of image rights, economic rights and third-party ownership; the latter a more straightforward case of a footballer running down his contract.
But both owe much to the rise of player power, of so-called super-agents and the saga of an unknown Belgian's battle to sign for a second tier French club that would have huge repercussions for the game, not least for a young Larne-born ace based in Strasbourg.
Today marks 25 years since the Bosman ruling and the day football changed for ever.
A case that had rumbled on since 1990 was eventually settled on December 15, 1995, as Jean-Marc Bosman emerged victorious onto the steps of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, having secured victory in his case against RFC Liège, who were demanding a transfer fee from Dunkirk despite Bosman being out of contract.
The ruling was a game-changer, divesting clubs of their hold over their assets.
"Bosman placed much power in the hands of players and their agents, fuelling a mercenary culture in some," Dr Rob Wilson, a football finance expert at Sheffield Hallam University, told the Belfast Telegraph.
"Clubs failing to tie players to contract renewals often costs them significantly in a free transfer.
"The player (and agent) tend to do very well in this instance as the buying club has more cash to give to the player given the lack of transfer fee. Alexis Sanchez is a good example of a forced sale because of the Bosman ruling, Sanchez doing particularly well in his earnings as a result.
"Arsenal lost a player who would have fetched £75m in an open market for circa £30m.
"Sanchez earned £300k-plus per week and his agent will have taken a large slice too. Ironically, Manchester United could end up on the other end of this with (Paul) Pogba."
More than two decades on and this is the monster the Bosman ruling created - but back at the time, players had only a vague notion that things were moving in their favour.
"It wasn't something that was uppermost in your mind but you knew something was going on that may help players," explained former Northern Ireland winger Michael Hughes, the first player in the English top flight to move on a Bosman when he ran down his contract at Strasbourg and made his loan at West Ham permanent in 1996.
"People have told me I was (the first English Bosman) but I've no way of knowing if that's true or false," he laughed.
"I don't really know, but I was certainly one of the first to have used it, yeah. I was out of contract at Man City before I went to Strasbourg, and Strasbourg still had to pay a fee.
"So when I was leaving Strasbourg, it was just like, 'You're out of contract now, just away you go, it doesn't really matter'.
"So it was just very different that you could up and leave and players all of a sudden had a lot more freedom.
"For me, it eased my path (to West Ham) because it was like, 'I'm free now, I don't need your permission to talk to anyone, no one has to pay you a fee, thanks very much, I enjoyed my time with the club and I'm going to try somewhere new now.'
"And I would say it certainly opened up doors for advisers, and even as far as a bargaining position.
"If you only had a year left on your contract, or sometimes clubs would come to you even two years before and offer you a new contract, because they didn't want to give you the option of saying, 'I've only a year left, I'm just going to run my contract down.'
"But yes, it certainly opened up the doors for advisers and, like anything in life, some of them were in it to make a quick buck and some were in it genuinely for the people they were representing. But you would have to say that a lot more agents came along, and now the agents are making as much money as the players almost.
"The game's gone crazy in terms of the money involved."
For Sanchez and co certainly, but, ironically, not for Bosman himself.
Having revolutionised the game for players and agents, he failed to benefit personally, admitting that his "name was poison" in the wake of the ruling.
At 31, he was past his peak by the time his case was finished, and only in the last decade did he emerge from a depression and alcoholism tailspin which dogged his early retirement.
A pyrrhic victory for Bosman perhaps, but not for players currently enjoying the spoils of what he fought for.
"I don't resent them: if that is what they are worth, then they deserve it," he said.
"Someone had to stand up. Today, when people talk about the Bosman ruling, I know that it means freedom. And for that, I am proud."
January 1999
Steve McManaman becomes first big star in England to run down deal and agree pre-contract with Real Madrid
