The average weekly wage for a Premier League player has risen above £50,000 for the first time, says a new study.
Sportingintelligence’s Global Sports Salaries Survey says the average annual wage in England’s top flight is £2,642,508 – or £50,817 per week.
The annual survey also says NBA side Oklahoma City Thunder has become the highest-paid sports team in history.
And it looks at earnings in women’s professional sport for the first time, finding an “enormous” gender pay gap.
European football powerhouses Barcelona, Paris St-Germain and Real Madrid are the three football teams who make up the top 10 earners alongside the seven NBA franchises.
Manchester United and Manchester City pay the most money in the Premier League but only make 23 and 24 on the survey’s list, despite both paying a basic average weekly salary of £100,000, or £5.2m a year, to their squads.
Barca’s near £6.6m weekly bill includes Lionel Messi’s £500,000-per-week deal, and makes them the highest payers in football. But PSG are not far behind with £6.472m – helped in part to Neymar’s £40.3m salary following his world record move from Barcelona last summer.
The £2.6m average for a Premier League player is more than double the equivalent figure in the German Bundesliga (£1.26m) and France’s Ligue 1 (£944,4075). Players in Spain’s La Liga earn an average of £1.68m annually, while the figure for Italy’s Serie A is £1.33m.
Manchester United’s weekly wage bill of £5.241m is followed by Manchester City’s £5.235m.
Behind them come Chelsea (£4.451m), Arsenal (£4.037m)