English Clubs Pay the Bills: How Europe’s Salary Kings Redefine the Champions League 2025/26
17 February 2026
European Salary Showdown
New data from Marca confirms that the English Premier League dominates the salary lists for players in the UEFA Champions League for the 2025/26 season, with five English clubs ranking in the top ten overall. And yes, the numbers are big enough to make you wonder if the players also have a separate 'sneaker budget'.
The data show a wide gap in payrolls between the big clubs and mid-sized or smaller teams participating in the competition. At the bottom of the list, Benfica and Sporting CP each spend around 40 million euros, followed by Eintracht Frankfurt (47.9m), PSV Eindhoven (50m), and Ajax (55m). If your calculator needs an update, sometimes it feels like it requires a loan just to press the = button.
Top Earners and the Pay Gap
In the middle of the table, clubs like Atalanta (57.9m), Monaco (62.9m), Bayer Leverkusen and Marseille (roughly 75–76m) appear, reaching up to Napoli (110.1m), Borussia Dortmund (130m), and Juventus (132m).
The highest spenders are clearly dominated by the Premier League, alongside a handful of other European giants. The ranking climbs from Tottenham (154.1m) to Paris Saint-Germain (171m), then Chelsea (190.4m), Liverpool (199.6m), Arsenal (210.5m), Barcelona (218.2m), Bayern Munich (245.1m), Manchester City (255.9m), and finally Real Madrid in the lead with 292.3m.
This disparity reflects the enormous financial muscle of the big clubs, with Real Madrid’s wage bill almost double what Benfica or Sporting Lisbon spend. The report also confirms the ongoing dominance of the English league in Europe’s payroll market, with Spain, Germany, and France nipping at the top ranks.
Punchline time: if salaries were actually goals, the Premier League would be a goal-scoring machine—and somehow still need a salary cap to keep the negotiation table from getting a mortgage. And if the league ever runs out of zeros in those figures, they’ll just rename 292.3 million to “just a tad over a hundred and a half.”
