Where Sunderland's best paid player from 10 years ago is right now | OneFootball

He was earning £80,000-a-week ten years ago, but where is he now?

Going into the January transfer window in the 2014/15 season, Sunderland were three points above the relegation zone in the Premier League, with just three wins, but 11 draws in 20 league games.

Only Aston Villa and Burnley had scored less goals than Gus Poyet's side, who had netted 18 in 20 - less than a goal a game.

The Black Cats needed some attacking reinforcement, so they brought in someone who, despite entering his twilight years at the age of 32, was about to become a club legend.

Jermain Defoe arrived from Toronto FC on a three-and-a-half-year deal, with Jozy Altidore moving the other way and, according to estimated figures from Capology, the former Tottenham Hotspur striker was given a contract of £80,000 per week at Sunderland, the highest at the club.

Defoe didn't see out the entirety of that contract, leaving at the end of the 2016/17 season - the season the club were relegated to the Championship - for Bournemouth, but in that short time, he became beloved by everyone at the Stadium of Light.

Defoe's final years of his playing career

Defoe would actually only score four goals in the second half of the 2014/15 season, but it was in the next two campaigns which saw him return to the striker that Sunderland fans knew he could be, netting 15 in both the 2015/16 and 2016/17 seasons.

His goals in 2015/16 were especially important, as he helped a Sunderland side who won just one of their opening 12 games survive relegation, scoring 5 in the final 12 games, where Sunderland lost just once. And to make things sweeter, the run helped relegate local rivals, Newcastle United, instead.

However, it was his special relationship with mascot Bradley Lowery which cemented Defoe as a hero not just in Sunderland, but across all of football too, and Sunderland fans were sad to see Defoe move on at the end of the 2016/17 season.

From Sunderland, Defoe spent one more full season in the English top flight but only scored four times in the 2017/18 season for Bournemouth. After only four substitute appearances and 16 instances where he was an unused substitute in the 2018/19 season, he moved to Rangers in January 2019.

He scored 32 goals in 74 appearances in Scotland, and helped Rangers end Celtic's nine-year streak of Scottish Premiership titles in the 2020/21 season.

Defoe turned 39 in October of the 2021/22 season and only managed nine minutes of SPL action in the first half of the season. Knowing his career was almost at an end, he signed back at Sunderland for the latter half of the season, making seven appearances as the club narrowly missed out on the League One play-offs.

Life post-retirement for Defoe

It was at the end of the 2021/22 season where Defoe hung up his boots. He remains in the top 10 of all-time goalscorers in Premier League history with 162, alongside 20 England goals in 57 caps, and was shortlisted for the Premier League Hall of Fame in 2024.

In August 2022, Defoe embarked on his first role outside of playing, as he rejoined Tottenham as an ambassador and an academy coach.

After two years working with the under-17s and under-21s squads at Tottenham, he left the club in July 2024 to focus on his next career in management, as he hopes to inspire more black coaches and managers in the game.