Barca's wage bill €65m more than Real's
According to a report from UEFA's 'Club Licensing Benchmarking', Barcelona's wage bill amounts to €372m in total, the biggest in all of Europe, €51m ahead of second-placed Manchester United (€321m).
UEFA have released on Wednesday its ninth 'club licensing benchmarking' report on European club football, which within it lists the top 20 European clubs according to wages.
Barcelona are comfortably out in front spending €372m, which amounts to 60 per cent of their total revenue and is a nine per cent increase on the last financial year. In second are Manchester United whose squad total is €321m, €51m less than the Catalan club but a 21 per cent increase on 2015.
It may come as a surprise to some that Real Madrid are in third, paying out €307m in wages which is €65m less than their Spanish rivals.
This report comes after rumoured doubts about 'Los Blancos' spending power in which the Madrid club have failed to live up to their 'Galactico' stereotype of spending big on transfers.
In recent windows, they have only shelled out €42.5m for Dani Ceballos and Theo Hernandez who are hardly the first names to go down on Zinedine Zidane's team sheet with the squad struggling for form.
The rest of the top 10 European clubs are listed below:
4. Chelsea (€298m); 5. Manchester City (€294m); 6. PSG (€292m); 7. Liverpool (€281m); 8. Bayern Munich (€270m); 9. Arsenal (€263m); 10. Juventus (€221m).