The deal between Russian club Anzhi and Italian team Inter for the transfer of Cameroon international Samuel Eto’o was sealed after weeks of negotiations. The price that was paid for him hovers between €25 and €27 million, which Inter will be re-investing on other players to replace him.

Eto’o is now the highest paid footballer, receiving a net €20 million, which is €8 million more than what Cristiano Ronaldo gets at Real Madrid, and double what Lionel Messi gets at Barcelona.

In simple terms, Eto’o will be pocketing €54,794 every day, or €2,283 per hour, or €38 per minute. Not bad, is it? Just to make a small comparison, in Malta the minimum wage is €3.80 an hour. Eto’o will get 10 times that per minute.

It was ironic to hear Eto’o say after the signing that he will not be playing in Russia for the money, but because he believes that the club aims high. Who is going to believe him?

Eto’o has made the choice of moving away from the Italian league, which is considered to be among the top in European football, to go play for a club that the rest of the world hardly knows about. Surely, they have their ambitions, but signing one major star is not enough to bridge the gap with the top clubs.

He will move out of the limelight and will no longer have the world attention on him; instead, he will earn much more than his colleagues are getting in the more important leagues. He would not have gone there unless the salary package was extraordinary, and that is what enticed him to leave Italy and go to Russia.

The question that arises is this: Should footballers earn so much for kicking a ball around? And, considering that Eto’o comes from the poorest of continents, where hundreds are dying of hunger and unhealthy conditions every day, the ethics behind such a move is even more questionable.

What Eto’o will be earning in a day will never be seen by most of his countrymen and other African people for their whole lives.

The other side of the coin is that if there are businessmen who are willing to pay so much, there is nothing wrong with footballers signing on the dotted line. Well and good. But, then again, Eto’o should have stopped himself from saying that he is not doing it for the money. It’s just not true.