Hassan Kachloul's wage demands may be too hot for Saints to handle, but how does the Moroccan's ask compare to what other top sportsmen earn?

Alessandro del Piero is Europe's (and by definition, the world's) highest paid player, reputed to be pulling in just over £150,000 a week in a contract worth £8million a year.

That makes Roy Keane's £52,000 a week (£2.7million a year) look like chicken feed.

David Beckham's reputed demand for £102,000 a week (£5.3million pa) would put him in the upper earning bracket of Italy's Serie A and Spain's Primera Liga, where Barca's Rivaldo and Real's Luis Figo earn similar amounts.

World heavyweight boxing champion Lennox Lewis can write his own check, demanding as much as £20million for each fight.

But, if you want to climb aboard a real sporting gravy train, it's calling at all stations Stateside.

Baseball star Alex Rodrigues blew the professional sport earnings market apart when he signed a deal with Texas Ranger worth £17.2million a year. That's just his salary, and doesn't even start to take into account his endorsement deals.

Expect even that to be shattered, though, when Derek Jeter begins new contract talks with World Series champions, the New York Yankees.

Jeter's outstanding talent on the diamond, coupled with his looks (he's a former boyfriend of Mariah Carey) and marketability make him the hottest property in American sport.

Sunday's NFL Superbowl between the New York Giants and Baltimore Ravens is not exactly a clash of the financial titans.

Neither are among the NFL's mega franchises, and the highest paid player to take the field will probably be Giants defense man Michael Strahan who earns around $8million (£6million) a year.

Surprisingly, considering that he won just about everything he entered, Tiger Woods golf prize money was only (ONLY?) just over $9million (£6.5million).

But don't feel too sorry for Tiger. His endorsement deals with car makers Buick and with American Express will top his paypacket up to around $25million for the year.