PSG top Ligue 1 wage bill with 12 of 13 highest-paid players
Neymar earns more than Edinson Cavani and Kylian Mbappé combined and the three cost €73.28m per year. Falcao is the only non-PSG player in top 10.
PSG’s dominance in Ligue 1 is reflected in the annual salaries the Parisian club shell out to their star players, to the extent that 12 of the 13 highest-paid players in the division represent the Parc des Princes club. Only Monaco striker Radamel Falcao breaks up the hegemony in the upper echelons of the wage list but even the Colombia star gets paid a fraction of what Neymar, Edinson Cavani and Kylian Mbappé trouser each season.
Even so, Monaco’s relatively modest wage bill was sufficient to beat PSG to the Ligue 1 title last season, which went some way to persuading the PSG board to smash the wages of their previous highest earner, Cavani, in order to lure Neymar and Mbappé to the French capital.
The Brazil international pockets a cool 36.8m a season purely from his contract at PSG and not taking into account bonuses and sponsorship deals. That means Neymar earns more in a month than the seven players at the bottom of the top 30 do in a year. He also takes home more in a season than his strike partners, Cavani and Mbappé, do combined.
Ligue 1 clubs' top 30 highest-paid players by team
| Team | Number of players | Gross annual outlay |
| PSG | 13 | €167.78m |
| Marseille | 7 | €32.28m |
| Monaco | 5 | €24.12m |
| Lyon | 4 | €15.6m |
| Nice | 1 | €5.4m |
Source: L'Équipe.
Falcao leads the second division of top earners
After Falcao, who in ninth place earns a relatively meagre nine million euros a year, the next non-PSG players on the list are Dmitri Payet and Luiz Gustavo, both of Marseille, who earn six million euros a year – the same amount as Hatem Ben Arfa, who has not played for PSG this season. Next in line is Mario Balotelli, the 16th-highest earner, who pulls in 5.4 million euros a year.
Marseille rank second on the list of clubs with the highest wage bills in Ligue 1 but as an indication of just how much the Neymar transfer altered the salary panorama in the French top flight and the transfer market as a whole, the seven highest players representing Marseille combined do not earn as much in a year as Neymar.
Top 30 highest-paid players in Ligue 1
| Player | Team | Gross monthly (millions) | Gross annually (millions) | |
| 1 | Neymar | PSG | €3,067.000 | €36.8 |
| 2 | Cavani | PSG | €1,540.000 | €18.48 |
| 3 | Mbappé | PSG | €1,500.000 | €18.0 |
| 4 | Thiago Silva | PSG | €1,330.000 | €15.96 |
| 5 | Di María | PSG | €1,120.000 | €13.44 |
| – | Marquinhos | PSG | €1,120.000 | €13.44 |
| 7 | Motta | PSG | €875.000 | €10.5 |
| 8 | Pastore | PSG | €770.000 | €9.24 |
| 9 | Falcao | Monaco | €750.000 | €9.0 |
| 10 | Alves | PSG | €700.000 | €8.4 |
| 11 | Draxler | PSG | €600.000 | €7.2 |
| – | Verratti | PSG | €600.000 | €7.2 |
| 13 | Ben Arfa | PSG | €500.000 | €6.0 |
| – | Payet | Marseille | €500.000 | €6.0 |
| – | Luiz Gustavo | Marseille | €500.000 | €6.0 |
| 16 | Balotelli | Nice | €450.000 | €5.4 |
| 17 | Thauvin | Marseille | €410.000 | €4.92 |
| 18 | Mandanda | Marseille | €350.000 | €4.2 |
| – | Moutinho | Monaco | €350.000 | €4.2 |
| – | Mariano | Lyon | €350.000 | €4.2 |
| – | Memphis Depay | Lyon | €350.000 | €4.2 |
| 22 | Keita Baldé | Monaco | €340.000 | €4.08 |
| 23 | Mitroglu | Marseille | €330.000 | €3.96 |
| 24 | Germain | Marseille | €300.000 | €3.6 |
| – | Rami | Marseille | €300.000 | €3.6 |
| – | Fekir | Lyon | €300.000 | €3.6 |
| – | B. Traoré | Lyon | €300.000 | €3.6 |
| 28 | Glik | Monaco | €290.000 | €3.48 |
| 29 | Jovetic | Monaco | €280.000 | €3.36 |
| 30 | Meunier | PSG | €260.000 | €3.12 |
Source: L'Équipe.
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