Who pays players the most? Well, gone on… guess…

The fifth Global Sports Salaries Survey tells us the answer, and as you almost certainly said, it is Manchester City.  The average member of the first team gets by on an income of £5.3m a year.   Which explains why Uefa has this week got a bit miffed about the way Man C has responded to the FFP regs, and why Uefa is looking to impose a transfer imabargo next week.

The investigative chamber, as it is now called, finished its investigation of Man Cit today and tomorrow writes to Man C to tell it what’s what.  Assuming that all we have been told of late comes to pass, the club will then have 10 days to accept or arue against the findings.   Man C could be fined of course but the argument is that since they have so much money, there is no point.  The benefactor will just pay.

Much of the argument centres on the £40m+ which has been put down as income from the sale of the club’s image rights and the sale of services to third parties, are really all that they seem to be.  Uefa insists that it is not the letter of the FFP that needs to be considered but the spirit.

There is also the long running row over the sponsorship deal with the Etihad airline, since the airline is hardly at arms length from Abu Dhabi which funds the club.  City are using the accountants who set up FFP in the first place to argue their case, which will reveal whether the accountants left a back door open which they could then exploit, when setting FFP up.

So, how does Man C compare to other clubs in terms of the average weekly pay of first team players.  Here is the answer, across the world of sport.

Club/Average weekly pay

  1. Manchester City £102,653
  2. NY  Yankees £101,666
  3. LA Dodgers £98,456
  4. Real Madrid £96,027
  5. Barcelona £94,256
  6. Brooklyn Nets £86,250
  7. Bayern Munich £84,671
  8. Manchester Utd £83,120
  9. Chicago Bulls £76,648
  10. Chelsea £76,626
  11. Arsenal £75,037

If Man City get away with their legal and accountancy appeals or are not given a serious sentence for breaking the rules, it will mean the end of FFP as the Man City model will be adopted by clubs from Chelsea to Monaco as a way of getting around the rules.

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The Arsenal anniversaries for the day appear on the home page of Untold and of the Arsenal History Society site, and there’s an index to the files on the AHS home page also.

The Books

6 Replies to “Who pays players the most? Well, gone on… guess…”

  1. Sorry to be OT but it has been announced that Lee Probert will ref the FA Cup final.

  2. Ben
    Hopefully not so bad…he’s had 4 of our games I’m told this season…w3 d1 lo Let’s hope he continues with this form.

  3. We should make Wembley our home stadium in the FA cup to counter Probert. As he is a home referee

  4. After a healthy 3-0 lead with 10mins to go, Flamini should kick the teeth out of that referee. I still freshly remember the darn duos who sent off Arsene at OT.

  5. I have no idea how these figures have been arrived at, as Arsenal PLC don’t publish the players salaries separate from the manager, coaching staff, back office staff and even match day staff. Arsenal has over 1000 employees. I’d suggest some very crude metrics were used.
    In short – I don’t think Arsenal pay their players close to this average.

  6. Honestly, I was surprised to see us up there near Chelsea and others
    How come? I mean they have lots of star players and we have this socialistic manner of payment with wage caps
    Can any body give an explanation about it
    Part of it is of course because of long term presence in CL
    But if any more information about this provided I would appreciate it

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