How Many Minutes Does Neymar Take To Earn Your Salary?

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Written By Hossein Soltani

English Premier League soccer clubs spent more than £1.4 billion on players in a record-breaking summer transfer window.

The money for new players was the highest ever transfer window outlay and saw the record tumble for the sixth season in a row.

Buoyed by billions of pounds of cash from selling TV rights, this season has seen player prices inflate to ridiculous levels.

Manchester City spent the most – £221.6 million.

Between them, EPL clubs shipped in 119 players.

The average player cost clubs £13 million – although some superstars traded places for much more.

Most expensive players to switch clubs

The most expensive incomer was Spain international Alvaro Morata. The 24-year-old centre forward moved to Chelsea from Real Madrid for £55.8 million.

But his transfer fee was dwarfed by spending by French club Paris St Germain.

They signed Brazilian forward Neymar, 25, from Barcelona for a world record £204 million and lined up the transfer of the highly-rated 18-year-old Kylian Mbappe for £152 million when his year-long loan spell expires next summer.

To show the scale of spending and how much players earn, the BBC has put together a soccer salary calculator that works out how long top footballers have to work to earn a fan’s wage.

Neymar is reported to earn £775,000 a week, making him the world’s highest paid footballer ahead of China-based Argentine international Carlos Tevez on a comparatively low £650,000 a week.

Average soccer star wages around Europe

The average UK ware after tax is £26,400, which takes Neymar roughly seven minutes to pocket – but takes the average UK worker 1,541 years to amass.

One of the highest paid EPL players is Manchester United’s France midfielder Paul Pogba, who rakes in £11.4 million a year – around £220,000 a week.

Pogba clocks up the average UK wage in 23 minutes.

The average EPL player earns around £2.4 million a year, which works out as £46,150 a week. In other European leagues, Spain’s La Liga players are paid £1.2 million a year; Serie A stars in Italy earn £1.1 million a year and German Bundesliga footballers get £1.03 million.

A £1 million a year salary equals a weekly pay packet of around £20,000.