La Liga salary caps - Real Madrid and Barcelona can pay at least €220m more than nearest rival

Real Madrid and Barcelona are way ahead of their La Liga rivals in terms of salary caps.

A report published in Marca showed the disparity in salary caps between the top two clubs in La Liga – Real Madrid and Barcelona – and the other 18 clubs, if clubs were allowed to pay as much as they are currently allowed.

Barcelona can pay the highest wages in the league with a total of €347.9m! They are closely followed by Real Madrid who are about €20m behind with €328m.

But after that, the gap is huge! The next highest is Atletico Madrid with €105m – more than €200m less than the top two clubs. These three are the only clubs with a wage bill cap which is more than €100m.

Sevilla and Valencia are the only other clubs at more than €50m. All the other 15 clubs pay less with small clubs like Eibar, Elche and Almeria not even paying more than €13m.

The numbers reveal a lot about the top two clubs’ finances, even though they are in debt. Their vast sources of income allow the clubs to pay as much as they can in spite of heavy expenditures.

La Liga’s total wage bill could be as high as €1.28 billion if clubs paid as much as they could.

#	CLUB	SALARY CAP (€m)
1	Barcelona	347.9
2	Real Madrid	328
3	Atletico Madrid	105
4	Sevilla	78.6
5	Valencia	73
6	Athletic Bilbao	49.9
7	Villarreal	44.2
8	Real Sociedad	38.9
9	Espanyol	32.2
10	Malaga	27.5
11	Granada	22.8
12	Celta Vigo	18.7
	Getafe	18.7
14	Levante	17
15	Rayo Vallecano	15.8
16	Deportivo La Coruna	15.3
17	Cordoba	14.2
18	Eibar	12.8
19	Elche	12.5
20	Almeria	11.7