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