The Current Financial Landscape in Football

So it's that time of the year when your favorite club is either buying players for reinforcements or (in my case) selling it's stars. With Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations about to kick off in 2012, it seems the only clubs who are taking this issue seriously are those in Serie A. While that cannot be ascertained by looking only at the purchases and sales of star players, I don't see clubs like PSG, Manchester City, or Chelsea meeting the FFP rules. These rules state that clubs who make a loss of more than 45 million Euros over the 2012-2014 period are disqualified from participating in the Champions League. Based on current figures, Manchester City had in excess of 100m POUNDS in losses, when you do the maths, that equates to 127 million Euros! and that's just in one year. How on earth are they going to reduce their losses to 45m over 2 years?! 


In any case, apart from transfer fees, here's an overview of who spent what on wages last year. From the figures, it is no surprise that Barcelona and Real Madrid are what they are at the moment. Whether they can sustain that sort of expenditure is another story. It is also surprising that Milan are fifth on this list with an average salary per player of USD 6.1 million. Most people consider Milan a cheap team that looks for bargains, but it seems like what they were saving on transfer fees, they have been paying in higher wages. From this perspective, perhaps the Ibra/T.Silva sales were necessary to reorganize things. 

Rank	Team and League	Avg Wages per player (USD)	$ per week
1	Barcelona * La Liga	8,680,569	166,934
2	Real Madrid La Liga	7,796,637	149,935
3	Manchester City * EPL	7,403,754	142,380
4	Chelsea EPL	6,795,899	130,690
5	Milan * Serie A	6,104,769	117,399
6	Bayern Munich * Bundesliga	5,907,652	113,609
7	Internazionale Serie A	5,700,915	109,633
8	Manchester United EPL	5,521,423	106,181
9	Arsenal EPL	5,280,108	101,541
10	Liverpool EPL	5,230,525	100,587
11	Juventus Serie A	4,695,976	90,307
12	Schalke Bundesliga	4,187,722	80,533
13	Aston Villa EPL	4,067,464	78,220
14	Roma Serie A	3,897,660	74,955
15	Tottenham EPL	3,809,476	73,259
16	Borussia Dortmund Bundesliga	3,122,824	60,054
17	Valencia La Liga	3,065,511	58,952
18	Werder Bremen Bundesliga	2,734,924	52,595
19	Stuttgart Bundesliga	2,721,154	52,330
20	Hamburg Bundesliga	2,579,904	49,614
21	Atletico Madrid La Liga	2,575,531	49,529
22	Sevilla La Liga	2,546,216	48,966
23	Fulham EPL	2,425,160	46,638
24	Everton EPL	2,371,948	45,614
25	Sunderland EPL	2,367,467	45,528
26	Bolton EPL	2,342,962	45,057
27	West Ham EPL	2,338,844	44,978
28	Bayer Leverkusen Bundesliga	2,278,258	43,813
29	Newcastle EPL	2,239,808	43,073
30	Blackburn EPL	2,164,252	41,620
31	Nuremberg Bundesliga	2,131,880	40,998
32	Fiorentina Serie A	2,053,745	39,495
33	Wolfsburg Bundesliga	1,977,999	38,038
34	Stoke EPL	1,951,237	37,524
35	Lazio Serie A	1,925,350	37,026
36	Athletic Bilbao La Liga	1,909,662	36,724
37	Wigan EPL	1,828,126	35,156
38	Genoa Serie A	1,807,493	34,759
39	Kaiserslautern Bundesliga	1,762,005	33,885
40	Hoffenheim Bundesliga	1,760,991	33,865
41	Cologne Bundesliga	1,759,956	33,845
42	Celtic * SPL	1,757,964	33,807
43	Hannover 96 Bundesliga	1,716,322	33,006
44	Birmingham EPL	1,710,585	32,896
45	Borussia Monchengladbach Bundesliga	1,683,902	32,383
46	Napoli Serie A	1,669,305	32,102
47	Mainz Bundesliga	1,665,531	32,029
48	Zaragoza La Liga	1,658,391	31,892
49	St Pauli Bundesliga	1,656,318	31,852
50	West Bromwich Albion EPL	1,650,305	31,737
51	Villarreal La Liga	1,641,640	31,570
52	Sampdoria Serie A	1,629,504	31,337
53	Wolverhampton Wanderers EPL	1,463,969	28,153
54	Freiburg Bundesliga	1,379,842	26,535
55	Rangers SPL	1,355,612	26,069
56	Palermo Serie A	1,234,698	23,744
57	Espanyol La Liga	1,206,102	23,194
58	Mallorca La Liga	1,113,970	21,422
59	Bologna Serie A	1,061,291	20,409
60	Udinese Serie A	1,059,458	20,374
61	Catania Serie A	1,049,493	20,183
62	Real Sociedad La Liga	1,046,964	20,134
63	Getafe La Liga	1,034,400	19,892
64	Parma Serie A	972,067	18,694
65	Bari Serie A	920,411	17,700
66	Cagliari Serie A	881,469	16,951
67	Osasuna La Liga	854,323	16,429
68	Racing Santander La Liga	829,195	15,946
69	Deportiva La Coruna La Liga	799,880	15,382
70	Lecce Serie A	790,298	15,198
71	Blackpool EPL	718,893	13,825
72	Chievo Serie A	695,463	13,374
73	Malaga La Liga	695,184	13,369
74	Brescia Serie A	633,957	12,191
75	Levante La Liga	577,924	11,114
76	LA Galaxy * MLS	555,799	10,688
77	Heart of Midlothian SPL	541,437	10,412
78	New York Red Bulls MLS	529,126	10,176
79	Hercules La Liga	502,543	9,664
80	Almeria La Liga	489,979	9,423
81	Cesena Serie A	418,285	8,044
82	Sporting Gijon La Liga	380,642	7,320

*Data Obtained from the Guardian.co.uk