Spanish giants, Barcelona is now the highest paying football club in the world spending a whopping sum of £10,454,259 per man in the 2018-19 season.

According to the 2018 edition of the Global Sports Salaries Survey (GSSS) published on Monday, the La Liga champions are number 1 in the world in average basic pay in a survey that includes 349 teams in eight sports across 18 leagues in 13 countries.

Mailonline reported that the Blaugrana’s arch-rival Real Madrid, are No 2 on this year’s pay list, averaging £8.1m, but only two other football teams, Juventus who is at No 10 and Manchester United in No 11 make the top dozen payers, with NBA basketball teams filling the rest of those spots.

A new deal for Messi signed last November pays him more than £50m a year guaranteed until 2021, with a £619m buyout clause.

Gerard Pique, Sergi Roberto, Samuel Umtiti and Sergio Busquets have all signed lucrative extensions this calendar year (all with £442m buyout clauses) and new additions to the Barca wage bill have included Philippe Coutinho, signed from Liverpool in January, and Arthur, Malcolm and Arturo Vidal among others in summer 2018.

However, the publication also showed that the Premier League is the best-paid league ahead of the La Liga and other leagues across Europe with Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal as the highest paying clubs while Cardiff, Huddersfield and Burnley are the lowest paying clubs in the Premier League.

NBA remains comfortably the best-paid sports league in the world by average pay, with Oklahoma City Thunder, Golden State Warriors and the Washington Wizards as the best paying NBA teams.

The report contains exclusive analysis on sports pay from football analytics firm 21st Club and their sister firm, 15th Club, who work in golf and contributed to Europe’s win over the USA in this year’s Ryder Cup.

Omar Chaudhuri, the head of football intelligence at 21st Club, says Premier League clubs are paying more than twice the transfer fees of counterparts in Spain, Italy, Germany and France for players of the same quality, and this ‘PL Premium’ stretches to wages, where England’s elite often pay two to three times the salaries that their rival leagues pay for players of the same quality.

That NBA trio breaks new ground of their own by becoming the first NBA teams – or indeed American teams from any sport – where average basic pay is more than $10m (US dollars) per player per year.

The Best Paid Football Clubs In The World

1 Barcelona – £10,454,259

2 Real Madrid – £8,089,582

3 Juventus – £6,726,615

4 Man Utd – £6,534,654

5 Bayern Munich – £6,352,435

6 Atletico Madrid – £6,155,066

7 PSG – £6,105,840

8 Man City – £5,993,000

9 Chelsea – £5,020,004

10 Liverpool – £4,862,963

The Best Paid Sports League In The World.

1 NBA – £5,905,912

2 IPL – £3,844,734 (pro rata)

3 MLB – £3,429,676

4 Premier League – £2,990,726

5 NHL – £2,115,617

6 NFL – £2,213,668

7 La Liga – £2,201,057

8 Serie A – £1,519,885

9 Bundesliga – £1,396,575

10 Ligue 1 – £989,776

Source: https://hotsportstv.com/barca-top-best-paying-football-club-in-the-world/