FC Barcelona, La Liga champions, have become the first club to pay over half-a-billion in salaries. It’s a 42 per cent rise on 2017’s figures, as KPMG’s Football Benchmark study revealed as they looked at the champions of each of the top eight leagues in Europe.
Barcelona who signed Philippe Coutinho in January 2018 for a record 160 million euros, spend 562m eurosa year on salaries. They also had Ousmane Dembele arriving in August and renewed a lot of players’ contracts, including Lionel Messi.
KPMG’s study had PSG in second place, spending 332m euros a year on players, a 20 percent rise on the year before.
Man City have the most valuable squad (1.182 billion) but their salary fell 5 per cent, while all the other teams analysed rose.
Meanwhile PSG had the most valuable players in Neymar (229m euros) and Kylian Mbappe (215m), while Messi was third (203m).
Expansion looked further, with Barca, with incomings of 698m, one of the richest in the world, but Real Madrid rake in 743m.