Juventus star Cristiano Ronaldo is Serie A’s runaway highest earner on €31m a season, with Matthijs de Ligt and Romelu Lukaku already second and third.
An investigation by Gazzetta dello Sport discovered Serie A was spending €1.36bn on gross salaries – the most in the League’s history.
That is chiefly down to Ronaldo’s extravagant income of almost €600,000 a week and Juve’s wage bill of €294m – more than double that of nearest challengers Inter (€139m).
Over half of the top 20 play for Juve, with De Ligt coming in second on €8m plus €4m in bonuses, just two months after his arrival from Ajax.
In third is Lukaku, whom Inter are paying €7.5m a season plus €1.5m in bonuses.
Further down, Kalidou Koulibaly is Napoli’s highest earner on €6m a season, as are Gianluigi Donnarumma for Milan (€6m) and Edin Dzeko for Roma (€5m + €1m).
As for the best of the rest, Franck Ribery earns €4m at Fiorentina – €2.3m more than Federico Chiesa.
Radja Nainggolan is on €3m back at Cagliari, Lazio trio Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, Ciro Immobile and Lucas Leiva all pocket €2.5m and Mario Balotelli is taking €1.5m plus €3m in bonuses from Brescia.
Finally, despite their historic qualification for the Champions League, Atalanta have only the 13th-highest wage bill in Serie A.
Serie A wage-bill ranking
1. Juventus (€294m)*
2. Inter (€139m)
3. Roma (€125m)
4. Milan (€115m)
5. Napoli (€103m)
6. Lazio (€72m)
7. Torino (€54m)
8. Fiorentina (€50m)
9. Cagliari (€44m)
10. Bologna (€41m)
11. Genoa (€40m)
12. Sampdoria (€36m)
13. Atalanta (€36m)
14. Sassuolo (€35m)
15. Lecce (€32m)
16. Parma (€31m)
17. SPAL (€30m)
18. Udinese (€30m)
19. Brescia (€28m)
20. Verona (€25m)
* denotes gross wage bill
Top 20 highest earners in Serie A
1. Cristiano Ronaldo (Juventus, €31m)*
2. Matthijs De Ligt (Juventus, €8m + €4m)
3. Romelu Lukaku (Inter, €7.5 + €1.5m)
4. Gonzalo Higuain (Juventus, €7.5m)
5. Paulo Dybala (Juventus, €7.3m)
6. Adrien Rabiot (Juventus, €7m + €2m)
7. Aaron Ramsey (Juventus, €7m)
8. Miralem Pjanic (Juventus, €6.5m)
9. Douglas Costa [Juventus, €6m)
10. Mario Mandzukic (Juventus, €6m)
11. Sami Khedira (Juventus, €6m)
12. Gianluigi Donnarumma (Milan, €6m)
13. Kalidou Koulibaly (Napoli, €6m)
14. Leonardo Bonucci (Juventus, €5.5m)
15. Edin Dzeko (Roma, €5m + €1m)
16. Diego Godin (Inter, €5 + €1m)
17. Alex Sandro (Juventus, €5m)
18. Emre Can (Juventus, €5m)
19. Alexis Sanchez (Inter, €5m)
20. Lorenzo Insigne (Napoli, € 4.6m)
* denotes net salary
