Barcelona become first club with €500m wage bill

Barcelona have become the first club in world football to rack up an annual wage bill over €500m, according to a new study by accountancy giants KPMG “The Football Benchmark”. Paris Saint-Germian spent €332m on salaries in 2018, whilst Manchester City saw their figure fall slightly as they won the Premier League title, spending €293m. The report also revealed that Manchester City have the most valuable squad in the world worth around £1billion. Lionel Messi ranked as the third most valuable player at a worth of €203m, with younger players Neymar (€229m) and Kylian Mbappe (€215m) having a higher market value, according to the same report. Barcelona's massive spending was balanced out by a €689m operating revenue, ultimately giving them a post-tax profit, which Juventus, Porto and Galatasaray could not claim to have achieved.

A possible successor to Sven Mislintat has already rejected Arsenal’s approach