Monaco striker Dimitar Berbatov is Bulgaria's highest-paid athlete in the past decade with his earnings for the period estimated at BGN 70 M.

According to a study of daily Capital, which ranked the top ten highest-paid athletes in the country, Berbatov is the wealthiest Bulgarian athlete ever.

The only Bulgarian to have become goalscorer of the Premier League, played successively for Bayer Leverkusen, Tottenham, Manchester United and Fulham before moving to Monaco, with most of his wealth accumulated from salaries.

Berbatov's earnings exceed twice those of his colleague Martin Pertov, who takes the second place in the ranking.

Petrov played successively for Wolfsburg, Atletico Madrid, Manchester City, Bolton and Espanyol before announcing his retirement in 2014 as player of CSKA Sofia.

The top three is completed by another footballer Stilyan Petrov, who quit his career to battle the acute leukaemia with which he had been diagnosed in 2012.

Petrov, who recently announced that his treatment had been successful, played for Celtic and Aston Villa, becoming the only Bulgarian to become a captain of a team in the Premier League.

It is interesting to note that the top three athletes featured in this ranking are all of the same football generation and made their breakthroughs in CSKA Sofia.

Bulgaria's top male tennis player and ATP's No.11 Grigor Dimitrov is fourth in the ranking, holding the greatest potential to increase his wealth due to his young age.

Next in the ranking are chess grandmaster Veselin Topalov, followed by another two football players Blagoy Georgiev and Valeri Bozhinov, retired sumo wrestler Kaloyan Mahlyanov, top female tennis player Tsvetana Pironkova and volleyball star Matey Kaziyski.

Berbatov also topped the list of highest-paid athletes in 2014 with the ranking being dominated by a total of seven football players in the top ten.

The only exceptions are the two tennis players Dimitrov and Pironvova and boxer Kubrat Pulev.