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The East Stand | Chinese Super League’s millionaires live it up while League Two players protest unpaid wages ahead of uncertain futures at the end of the season
- China’s heads La Liga and English Premier League for largest gap between footballer’s wages and national average
- Several clubs in levels below CSL have struggled to pay their players this season and history suggests some will fold
Reading Time:4 minutes
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A recently published report compared the wages of the world’s best footballers with the average annual salary of people in the country where they play.
Unsurprisingly, the greatest disparity was not in Europe’s biggest leagues but instead in the Chinese Super League, where players were said to earn more than 160 times the average salary.
The survey of 61 leagues conducted by Vouchercloud was done using football salaries from the Global Sports Salaries Report 2018 and national salaries taken from the World Bank.
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China topped the list, with footballers earning US$1,051,603 and the average worker taking home US$6,597.93 per year in comparison. Footballers in China earn the average national wage in a little over two days.
The survey found Spain’s La Liga and the English Premier League to have the next largest disparities, with players earning 124 and 115 times more than their respective citizens.
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