Serie A salaries report shows gap between Juve and competition
By jc
La Gazzetta dello Sport published its annual Serie A wage report on Tuesday. The report includes salaries for all Serie A teams and players for the 2019-2020 season.
According to the report, Serie A teams will spend $1.5 billion on player salaries for the current season. This is the highest total in league history.
The wage report shows that Serie A is in good shape financially. Teams like Juventus and Inter spend money to attract big stars, and this raises Serie A’s profile. Star players lead to things such as new sponsorship opportunities and widespread television deals.
Plus, more star players means that the league is more competitive relative to the rest of Europe. Serie A teams, after they spend to acquire better players, can compete with big-budget teams in the Premier League and La Liga.
What the wage report also shows, however, is the massive gap between Juventus and everyone else.
How much do Serie A teams spend on salaries?
Juventus, based on the figures in the report, will spend $325 million on player salaries this season. This is more than double the next-highest team, Inter, which will spend $153 million. Here is a full list of Serie A team salaries:
- Juventus: $325 mil
- Inter: $153 mil
- Roma: $138 mil
- Milan: $127 mil
- Napoli: $114 mil
- Lazio: $79 mil
- Torino: $60 mil
- Fiorentina: $55 mil
- Cagliari: $49 mil
- Bolonga: $45 mil
- Genoa: $44 mil
- Sampdoria: $40 mil
- Atalanta: $40 mil
- Sassuolo: $39 mil
- Lecce: $35 mil
- Parma: $34 mil
- SPAL: $33 mil
- Udinese: $33 mil
- Brescia: $31 mil
- Verona: $28 mil
Juventus has a clear financial advantage over the rest of Serie A. Even teams in big markets like Milan and Rome struggle to compete financially with Juventus.
This major gap in player salaries is the biggest reason behind Juve’s run of Serie A dominance. With such a massive budget, Juventus always has a deep and talented squad that can balance the long season.
In order to truly compete with Juventus, Serie A’s other top teams need to spend more on players. How is a team like Napoli supposed to compete with a team that spends almost three times as much on salaries?
Which Serie A players have the highest salaries?
Juve’s financial dominance becomes even more apparent after an analysis of individual player salaries. Here’s a list of the top 10 Serie A players by salary:
- Cristiano Ronaldo, Juventus: $34 mil
- Matthijs de Ligt, Juventus: $13.25 mil
- Romelu Lukaku, Inter: $10 mil
- Adrien Rabiot, Juventus: $9.9 mil
- Gonzalo Higuain, Juventus: $8.3 mil
- Paulo Dybala, Juventus: $8.1 mil
- Aaron Ramsey, Juventus: $7.7 mil
- Miralem Pjanic, Juventus: $7.2 mil
- Douglas Costa, Juventus: $6.6 mil
- Mario Mandzukic, Juventus: $6.6 mil
Cristiano Ronaldo is the obvious outlier when it comes to salary. He makes almost triple as much as the next player, Matthijs de Ligt. Ronaldo is the best and most valuable player in Serie A, so he should be the league’s most expensive player. The gap between Ronaldo and everyone else, however, is far too big.
Ronaldo’s salary represents one of the major problems in Serie A: Juventus spends much more on players than the other teams. Nine out of the 10 highest-paid players in Serie A are on Juventus. And Lukaku, the only player not on Juventus, joined Inter only this summer.
Here’s another way to look at the gap in player salaries. Most people view Napoli as the second-best team in Serie A, and its highest-paid player is Kalidou Koulibaly. He makes $6.6 million, which is less than seven Juventus players.
Related Story. What we learned from Juventus-Napoli. light
Major gaps in player salaries is nothing new in European soccer. Certain big-market teams will always dominate Serie A, the Premier League, La Liga, and Bundesliga. Nonetheless, the gap in Serie A is striking. Juventus flexes its financial muscle year after year, and there isn’t much the other teams can do in response.