Uefa president describes rise in clubs’ wages as reckless

The Uefa president, Aleksander Ceferin, has warned that some clubs are being “reckless” in pursuit of success after wage bills rose by 16 per cent across European teams during the pandemic, despite revenues being hit over the same period.

The annual Uefa benchmarking report looking at 711 clubs’ finances shows that despite revenues dropping by €7 billion (£6.2 billion) during the first two years of Covid, wage bills rose sharply.

Across English clubs, total wages more than doubled between 2012-21, while rising by 95 per cent in Germany and 93 per cent in Spain.

“This report indicates the most significant challenges for clubs come from the cost side,” Ceferin said. “Despite the unprecedented turmoil of recent years, wages have continued to grow, rising on average by 16 per cent compared to pre-pandemic standards.

“Top-division players’ salaries, for example, have more than doubled during the past decade. And while this is not a negative trend per se, it is clear that many are compromising their economic sustainability in their reckless pursuit of success.”

Uefa’s new Financial Sustainability Regulations that came into force last month restrict the level of clubs’ spending on wages, transfers and agent fees compared to the revenues. Clubs will only be allowed to spend 90 per cent of revenues on these in 2023, dropping to 70 per cent in 2025. Ceferin described this as a “timely and direct measure” designed to “encourage more performance-related costs, while limiting the market inflation of wages and transfer costs of players”.

The report shows the gap between England and the rest of Europe has widened post-pandemic, especially in relation to transfers. It does not cover the past two transfer windows, however, in which the Premier League set records; last month alone, Chelsea spent more than all clubs in Spain, Italy, Germany and France combined.

“This can either be interpreted as a notable change of behaviour of English clubs, or as a one-off peak, allowing clubs to restructure their squads post-pandemic,” the report says. “The situation is much different outside England, with clubs adopting a much more cautious spending approach.”

The combined wage bill of the 20 Premier League clubs is 80 per cent higher than that of La Liga, which is also a 20-club division.