{"id":4511,"date":"2018-09-10T12:30:31","date_gmt":"2018-09-10T10:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/soccerment.com\/?p=4511"},"modified":"2024-06-14T13:07:47","modified_gmt":"2024-06-14T13:07:47","slug":"player-salaries-italian-serie-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/soccerment.com\/it\/player-salaries-italian-serie-a\/","title":{"rendered":"Player salaries in the Italian Serie A (2018\/19)"},"content":{"rendered":"

We analysed the contractual details of all the 548 players of the Italian Serie A (‘ISA’) and then aggregated the data by team, by role, by country and by age. The average salary per player, net of taxes, is \u20ac1m per year. The top-earner is Juventus’s Cristiano Ronaldo<\/a>, \u20ac31m per year, <\/strong>costing more than the entire team rosters of Chievo, Spal and Empoli, combined. According to our calculations, the “median” ISA player would earn around \u20ac11m in a 19-year career (18-36 year-old), with a peak salary of \u20ac1.1m, at around 30 years of age. If you are planning a Serie A career, you should know that forwards earn 27% more than the other players.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Serie A’s wage budgets are growing, +18% vs 2017\/18<\/h2>\n

According to ‘La Gazzetta dello Sport<\/em>‘ (GdS<\/em>), in the new season, Serie A’s teams will spend slightly more than \u20ac1.1bn for player wages (gross of taxes). This translates into an 18% increase compared to 2017\/18 (\u20ac955m).<\/p>\n

We calculate that more than one-third of the increase is due to Cristiano Ronaldo<\/a> alone, who will earn a net salary of \u20ac31m at Juventus (\u20ac62m gross of taxes, using the same tax rate of GdS)<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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\"Serie<\/a>
Chart 1: Serie A’s historical total salaries<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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According to the Global Sports Salaries survey (‘GSSS’,\u00a0link<\/a>) for the 2017\/18 season, the Italian Serie A was the third-ranked league among the top-5, when it comes to both the total salaries and the average (gross) salary per player. The English Premier League (‘EPL’) was the richest tournament and Spanish La Liga (‘SLL’) was second.<\/p>\n

In the chart below, we include both the numbers as published by La Gazzetta dello Sport<\/em> and those displayed by GSSS<\/em>. You will notice that the gross salaries related to the 2017\/18 Serie A are different. It seems this is mainly due to the GSSS’ methodology and their “first-team” definition, narrowing the team rosters as compared to GdS, which displays more than 30 players in a handful of cases.<\/p>\n

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\"Comparison<\/a>
Chart 2: Comparison between Top-5 leagues’ spending on player salaries<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Another interesting aspect emerging from the survey is the “inequality” of some leagues compared to others, calculated by the ratio between the salaries of the top and the lowest spenders: the lowest ratio describes the most competitive league and vice-versa. The EPL appears as the most competitive, while the FL1 as the least.<\/p>\n

According to the numbers provided by the GdS, the “inequality” in the Serie A has increased further this year. The average salary per player of\u00a0Juventus will<\/strong>, in fact, be roughly 17 times that of Empoli<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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\"Ratio<\/a>
Chart 3: Ratio between the highest average salary per player and the lowest, top-5 leagues<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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In the chart 4 below we reported the Italian Serie A’s total salaries (gross of taxes), as published by La Gazzetta dello Sport<\/em> on 4 September 2018.<\/p>\n

According to the total salaries, the Italian Serie A seems to be divided into 7 groups:
\n1 – Juventus;
\n2 – The main UCL-placement contenders: AC Milan, Inter Milan, Roma, Napoli;
\n3 – Lazio;
\n4 – Mid-table Tier 1: Torino, Fiorentina, Sampdoria, Bologna and Sassuolo;
\n5 – Mid-table Tier 2: Cagliari, Genoa, Atalanta and Udinese;
\n6 – Relegation battle: Parma, Frosinone, Chievo, Spal;
\n7 – Empoli.<\/p>\n

We are not saying that there cannot be exceptions to the rule and that the table rankings will follow the salary budgets. In chart 12 below, we show for instance that, last year, some teams were able to outperform the salary-to-points correlation (Napoli, Atalanta and Lazio, to name a few), while others underperformed. However, the correlation is normally quite strong. For the 2017\/18 Serie A, the\u00a0R-squared was 72%, while it was 71% in EPL and 61% in SLL.<\/p>\n

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\"Serie<\/a>
Chart 4: Serie A’s total gross salaries, by team<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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How much does a Serie A player make in one year, on average?<\/h2>\n

Net of taxes, footballers in the Italian Serie A earn around \u20ac1m per year<\/strong> (\u20ac562m total net salaries for 548 players). We calculate that the median net salary<\/strong> is however less than \u20ac600k<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In the chart below, we show that more than half of the players earn between \u20ac250k and \u20ac1m<\/strong>. The salary bucket with the highest number of players (159) is \u20ac250-500k.<\/p>\n

Only seven players earn more than \u20ac5m per year. Five of them play for Juventus (Cristiano Ronaldo<\/a>, Paulo Dybala<\/a>, Miralem Pjanic<\/a>, Douglas Costa<\/a> and Leonardo Bonucci<\/a>) and two for AC Milan (Gonzalo Higuain<\/a> and Gianluigi Donnarumma<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Apart from Donnarumma, the top-earners among the under-23 are Alessio Romagnoli<\/a> (AC Milan), Patrick Schick<\/a> (Roma) and Franck Kessi\u00e9<\/a> (AC Milan).<\/p>\n

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\"Number<\/a>
Chart 5: Number of players in each salary bucket<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Salary distribution by age<\/h2>\n

In the two charts below we represent the distribution of net salaries by age. In both charts we excluded the outlier Cristiano Ronaldo<\/a>, in order to improve readability. His net salary of \u20ac31m is kind of off the charts, distorting the overall view.<\/p>\n

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\"Distribution<\/a>
Chart 6: Distribution of net salaries by age<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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In chart 7, the reader could appreciate the steady increase of the net salaries as the players approach 31 years of age and its subsequent reduction.<\/p>\n

\"Average<\/a>
Chart 7: Average net salaries by age<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Salary distribution by role<\/h2>\n

We calculate that Serie A teams spend around \u20ac90m (gross salaries) on 61 goalkeepers, \u223c\u20ac350m on 192 defenders (centre-backs and full-backs), \u223c\u20ac305m on 155 midfielders (including central attacking midfielders) and \u223c\u20ac385m on 140 forwards (including wide attacking midfielders).<\/p>\n

Thus, on average forwards earn 50% more than the remaining players. If we exclude Cristiano Ronaldo, forwards earn 27% more than the others.<\/p>\n

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\"Average<\/a>
Chart 8: Average and median net salaries by role<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Cristiano Ronaldo > (Chievo + Spal + Empoli)<\/h2>\n

It might be the first time in the history of the Italian Serie A that a single player earns more than an entire team roster.<\/p>\n

Cristiano Ronaldo, with a net salary of \u20ac31m (hence, a gross salary of \u20ac62m, using the same tax rate applied by GdS) <\/em>surpasses, by himself, not just one, but 14 team rosters. He\u00a0will actually earn more than three team rosters combined: Chievo (\u20ac21m), Spal (\u20ac21m) and Empoli (\u20ac16m).<\/p>\n

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\"Serie<\/a>
Chart 9: Serie A’s total gross salaries (teams & Cristiano Ronaldo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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How many Italians in the Serie A? How much do they make?<\/h2>\n

Out of the 548 players we counted, there are 232 Italians playing in the Serie A, which means less than half of the total (42%).\u00a0Parma is the team showing the highest share of domestic players (77%), while Fiorentina the lowest (15%).<\/p>\n

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\"Share<\/a>
Chart 10: Share of Italian players on total, by team<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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We calculate that, on average, Italian players make \u20ac400k less per year than the foreign players, in the Italian Serie A: Italians earn \u20ac0.8m while foreigners \u20ac1.2m, net of taxes.<\/p>\n

In our view, this is due to three factors:<\/p>\n

1) in the sample there are many young Italian players, who rose from the teams’ youth teams and often earn less than \u20ac100k per year;<\/p>\n

2) many of the expensive foreign players are attacking midfielders and forwards, who earn more, on average, as we show in chart 8;<\/p>\n

3) as they say,\u00a0nemo propheta in patria<\/em>: to exclude the salary-tails dictated by age, we selected the players who are between 23 and 29\u00a0year-old. We were left with 108 Italians earning \u20ac875k and 158 foreigners earning \u20ac1.2m on average. It must be noted that the subgroup of Italians is composed as follows: 14% goalkeepers, 34% defenders, 24% midfielders; 28% forwards; while the subgroup of foreigners, as follows: 6% goalkeepers, 39% defenders, 34% midfielders and 21% forwards. By applying the total average salaries to the two breakdowns, we conclude that the subgroups’ composition by role does not fully justify the wage disparity.\u00a0By the end of the Serie A, we will be able to tell the reader if the wage disparity is at least justified by the players’ performances.<\/p>\n

The top-5 Italian earners in the Serie A are:<\/p>\n