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Hi Everyone!
I was reading through r/soccer yesterday and a comment around what clubs actually spend the most money both via annual salaries paid out and net spend on transfers piqued my interest. I took some time to compile the annual salary figures and total net spend across 2014-2023(in GBP) for all the biggest spenders in world football. The table is filtered by Highest to lowest spending teams by Total Salary + Net Transfer Spend. The 2023-2024 salary numbers are estimates for the year and are subject to change throughout the year. Some interesting things to note from the past decade:
- Highest Cumulative Salary Bill over past 10 years: 1. Barcelona 2. Real Madrid 3. PSG 4. Manchester United 5. Bayern Munich
- Highest Net Transfer Spend over the past 10 years: 1. Manchester United 2. Chelsea 3. PSG 4. Arsenal 5. Manchester City.
- Highest Cumulative Salary + Net Transfer Spend over the past 10 years: 1. Manchester United 2. Barcelona 3. PSG 4. Real Madrid 5. Chelsea
- Average Spend per Trophy over the past 10 years: 1. Tottenham(0 trophies) 2. Manchester United 3. Arsenal 4. AC Milan 5. Chelsea
- Generally the more you spend the more you win. Groundbreaking stuff I know. However, Manchester United, AC Milan, Arsenal and Tottenham seem to be outliers compared to the rest.
- English teams on average have spent the most money per trophy won. The biggest contributor to this are the fees that English clubs have paid to acquire players via transfers which have been staggering. The teams in Spain, Italy and Germany have been winning their respective leagues and league cups etc. consistently on an annual basis over the past 10 years, whereas in the Premier League there seems to be a greater degree of variability across their domestic competitions. This is also contributing to the spend per trophy being higher in the Premier league than the rest.
- The highest total annual salaries paid out over the past 10 years belongs to PSG during the 2021-2022 season. No surprise there given that Messi had joined and added to the already staggering wage bill PSG had. PSG continues to have the highest wage bill of all of these teams in the 2023-2024 season.
Sources:Net Spend Figures: CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report
Annual Salary Figures(GBP): Capology
