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REVEALED: The eye-popping numbers behind PSG’s massive £326M losses in 2022… as big-money contracts for Lionel Messi and co create football’s highest wage bill at £643m and create potential headache of FFP
- Paris Saint-Germain racked up the highest wage bill in football history last season
- The incorporations of Lionel Messi, Sergio Ramos and Achraf Hakimi boosted the disbursement
- Neymar and Kylian Mbappe were added to a team with high incomes
- A new report puts PSG’s 2021-22 wage bill at £643m, the highest ever
- It eclipses the highest previously in Barcelona -which also had Messi- in 2019
- PSG posted a whopping £326m loss in their latest financial figures as a result
Paris Saint-Germain have posted the highest wage bill in football history with the signing of Lionel Messi and others last season, taking their outlay to a staggering £643m a year.
There was a 45 per cent jump in the French club’s wage bill after they signed Messi, Sergio Ramos, Achraf Hakimi and others at the start of the 2021-22 campaign.
Messi reportedly made £25.6m last season, his salary coming on top of other big earners at the club, including Kylian Mbappe and Neymar.
The signing of Lionel Messi led Paris Saint-Germain to register the highest salary mass in football
PSG presents its new signings (from left to right) Achraf Hakimi, Georginio Wijnaldum, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Sergio Ramos and Lionel Messi ahead of the 2021-22 campaign
Messi’s salary was added to high earners Neymar (left) and Kylian Mbappe (right)
Football Benchmark 2023 European Champions Report says PSG’s wage bill for 2021-22, the most recent figures available, is the highest figure ever recorded by a football club.
And that’s before France star Mbappe agreed to his mammoth new contract at the start of the current season, having turned down Real Madrid, who are apparently worth £547m over three years.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, PSG’s massive wage bill led them to post a £326m loss in their latest financial figures.
In September, PSG was fined £56 million by UEFA, of which £9 million had to be paid in full, for breaching Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules.
Barcelona rank high on the list for the highest salary bill when they had Lionel Messi on their team.
Messi, 35, has just inspired Argentina to World Cup glory and has just returned to Paris
The remaining balance depends on the club achieving the FFP objectives in the coming years.
How was it noted on TwitterPSG’s figure dwarfs the previous highest salary bill in football, which was the £478m outlay at Barcelona, which Messi played for, in 2019.
The third highest was also Barcelona, in 2018, when it paid its players £466m.
In fact, Barcelona has been in the top eight on the all-time salary list five times, and all in the last five years.
But PSG’s desperate quest to win the Champions League for the first time has led it to spend more and more on the salaries of its stars.
Spanish defender Ramos signed for PSG after leaving Real Madrid in the summer of 2021 and was reported to be taking home around £440,000 a month after tax.
Hakimi, who signed from Inter Milan for £51m in July 2021, also raised the wage bill. Other signings that summer included goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma and midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum.
The Football Benchmark report said PSG’s ratio of personnel costs to revenue was 109 per cent last season.
The report says: ‘Paris Saint-Germain recorded the highest staff cost growth among the major European champions [+45 per cent year on year]reaching a record figure of EUR728m (£643m), the highest ever reported by a football club.
“The summer signings of Lionel Messi, Achraf Hakimi, Gianluigi Donnarumma, among others, are the main drivers of this increase.”
In the summer of 2022, PSG once again spent heavily on the likes of Vitinha and Nuno Mendes, but it was Mbappe’s new contract that once again increased their spending.
Real Madrid’s wage bill for 2021-22 is also high on the list, up 28 per cent to £458m and is the fourth-highest of all time.