Sports Illustrated featured its Fortunate 50 list, displaying the top earning American athletes, and as you probably guessed it, its topped by Tiger Woods, who earned close to $100 milli in 2008 ($99,737,626 to be exact according to Fortune). This is crazy when you think that the figure is bigger than the next two guys combined, Phil Mickelson ($52m) and LeBron James ($42m). Its even crazier when you remembered that he missed half of the season because he was trying to play golf (and winning btw) with a blown out knee and a broken leg! Yesterday I tried to play golf slightly hung and my swing looked like I didn’t know my arse from my elbow.

Anyways, this is a futbol site and it is definitely It’s boom time for foreign-born athletes. Despite the slow economy, the average earnings of the top 20 non-American sportsmen are at an all-time high $29.5 million. In all, this year’s list features seven soccer players. See who they are are where they rank internationally after the jump

1. David Beckham – $45.2m

4. Lionel Messi -  $39.9m

11. Ronaldinho – $27.4m

12. Cristiano Ronaldo – $25.5m

14. Thierry Henry – $23.7m

18. Kaka – $21.1m

20. Zlatan Ibrahimovic – $19.5m

For the Fortunate 50 list of the top-earning American athletes, click here