Key points from the treemap
- Paris Saint-Germain’s wage bill in the 2022/23 season was €621.2m, the largest block on the chart by far.
- Olympique Lyonnais were second at €156.7m, so PSG spent almost four times as much (3.96 times, our arithmetic).
- The graphic says PSG’s wages made up 34% of the combined wage bills of Ligue 1’s 20 clubs. The 20 figures on the chart add up to €1,838.7m, which puts PSG at 33.8% (our arithmetic).
- The other 19 clubs together spent €1,217.5m, an average of about €64m each (our arithmetic). AC Ajaccio had the smallest wage bill, €16.2m.
- The text on the graphic links the imbalance to PSG winning 10 of the last 12 Ligue 1 titles and to French football’s light-touch financial rules.
All figures are from the Game State graphic by Chris Weatherspoon, which cites the DNCG, French football’s financial regulator, as its source.
The Ligue 1 wage bills treemap in text
Title: 25 January 2025, How big is the wage bill imbalance in France’s Ligue 1? Each rectangle is a club, shown by its crest and colours, with an area in proportion to its wage bill. Clubs are not named in text on the chart; the names below are read from the crests.
| Rank | Club (identified by crest) | Wage bill 2022/23 | Share of the 20-club total (our arithmetic) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Paris Saint-Germain | €621.2m | 33.8% |
| 2 | Olympique Lyonnais | €156.7m | 8.5% |
| 3 | Olympique de Marseille | €147.4m | 8.0% |
| 4 | Stade Rennais | €116.2m | 6.3% |
| 5 | AS Monaco | €112.9m | 6.1% |
| 6 | OGC Nice | €104.5m | 5.7% |
| 7 | LOSC Lille | €73.3m | 4.0% |
| 8 | RC Lens | €65.1m | 3.5% |
| 9 | Montpellier HSC | €51.7m | 2.8% |
| 10 | FC Nantes | €50.1m | 2.7% |
| 11 | RC Strasbourg Alsace | €45.1m | 2.5% |
| 12 | Stade de Reims | €44.0m | 2.4% |
| 13 | FC Lorient | €38.8m | 2.1% |
| 14 | ESTAC Troyes | €37.8m | 2.1% |
| 15 | Angers SCO | €36.4m | 2.0% |
| 16 | Stade Brestois 29 | €33.1m | 1.8% |
| 17 | Toulouse FC | €32.5m | 1.8% |
| 18 | AJ Auxerre | €30.3m | 1.6% |
| 19 | Clermont Foot 63 | €25.4m | 1.4% |
| 20 | AC Ajaccio | €16.2m | 0.9% |
Footer: “Note: all figures are for the 2022/23 season.” “Source: DNCG. Prepared by: Chris Weatherspoon | @GameStateUK”. Game State logo with “Graphical Imagery”.
Text printed on the graphic:
“The release of Deloitte’s latest Football Money League report this week was laden with intrigue. While the report’s focus is on listing those clubs with the highest revenues in world football, there was also plenty of new information relating to club wage bills. At the top end, as ever since their Qatari takeover in the early 2010s, was Paris Saint-Germain. The French champions spent €669m on wages in the 2023/24 season, a €48 million (eight per cent) increase on a year prior. That marked them out, once again, as the highest wage-payers in world football.”
“It also gave cause to consider just how out of step PSG’s wage bill is with their domestic rivals. ‘Financial fair play’ rules are non-existent in France, with clubs only required to comply with light-touch regulation around solvency (which can be guaranteed by benevolent owners). The result has been unsurprising: PSG, France’s only state-owned club, have spent far more than anyone else. Accordingly, they’ve won 10 of the last 12 Ligue 1 titles.”
“We don’t have full figures for Ligue 1 clubs for last year, but a look at wage bills from the 2022/23 season shows just how imbalanced things are in France. PSG’s €621 million wage bill was a long way of the rest; Olympique Lyon were the second-highest payers, yet their €157 million in staff costs were nearly four times lower than the amount spent by their wealthy rivals. In all, PSG’s wage bill comprised 34 per cent of the combined amount of Ligue 1’s 20 teams. The effect on the league’s competitive balance has been stark. It is hard not to link the disparity here to the crisis currently enveloping French football due to the league’s dwindling broadcast rights deal.”
Who collects the figures
The source on the graphic, the DNCG (Direction Nationale du Contrôle de Gestion, the National Directorate of Management Control), is the body that monitors and oversees the accounts of professional football clubs in France [3].
Deloitte’s Football Money League, mentioned in the graphic’s text, ranks clubs by revenue and defines wage costs as wages, salaries, signing-on fees, bonuses, termination payments, social security contributions and other employee benefits for all employees, including players, technical and administrative staff [2]. In its 2026 edition, covering the 2024/25 season, Deloitte placed PSG fourth in the world by revenue, at €837m [2].
PSG’s ownership
The “Qatari takeover” in the graphic’s text refers to Qatar Sports Investments (QSI), which took control of PSG in 2011. Since then QSI has been the majority owner, with Arctos Partners buying a minority stake in 2023 [4].
Notes on this infographic
- Season. The treemap shows 2022/23 wage bills, while the text quotes PSG’s 2023/24 figure (€669m). The two are different seasons, as the graphic says.
- Typo. The text reads “a long way of the rest”, meaning “a long way off the rest”.
- Rounding. The text gives PSG’s share as 34 per cent; the tile values give 33.8%.
- Club names. The chart shows crests only, so club names here are our reading of the crests and colours.
- Titles claim. “10 of the last 12 Ligue 1 titles” is the graphic’s own statement as of January 2025. We have not checked it season by season; Wikipedia gives PSG’s total as a record 14 Ligue 1 titles [4].
Sources
- Chris Weatherspoon, Game State, Graphical Imagery #11, How big is the wage bill imbalance in France’s Ligue 1?, 25 January 2025. The creator’s post of this graphic.
- Deloitte, Deloitte Football Money League 2026.
- Wikipedia, Direction Nationale du Contrôle de Gestion.
- Wikipedia, Paris Saint-Germain FC.
Last reviewed 30 October 2026
