Real Madrid have assembled the most expensive squad in Europe, figures released by Uefa have confirmed.
The 10-times European champions' playing staff was found to have cost the club a staggering €629 million, according to figures from the 2014 financial year due to be published on Wednesday in Uefa's annual Benchmarking Report, to which Goal has been granted advance access.
Madrid's squad cost dwarfs that of their nearest rivals by over €100m, with Manchester City (€526m) ranked in second place and Chelsea (€498m) in third.
In total, there were 15 squads in Europe assembled at a cost of more than €200m, including Barcelona, Manchester United, Inter, Juventus and Arsenal.
The Spanish giants, who boast a star-studded side spearheaded by Cristiano Ronaldo, also top the standings in terms of player wages, having paid out €270m in the same period.
Manchester United (€263m) and Barcelona (€248m) are next in line, closely followed by Barcelona (€248m), Manchester City (€245m) and Paris Saint-Germain (€235m).
The average wage bill of the leading 20 clubs in Europe for the financial year 2014 was €172m, with their combined outlay just under €3.5 billion.
Although wages continued to rise to a record €9.9bn for European top division clubs in 2014, wage growth slowed for the second successive year.
Following the onset of financial fair play, wage increases reduced to 4.3 per cent in 2013 and 3.0% in 2014, the lowest rates of growth in the last decade.
One reason why los Blancos have been able to flex their muscles in the transfer market to such an extent is that they pull in the greatest revenue via gate receipts, with their coffers swelled by €121m from this stream during the financial year 2014.
The Premier League duo of Arsenal and Manchester United are only narrowly behind Madrid, though, with Barca and Bayern Munich completing the top five, with the quintet clearly benefiting from stadium capacities of over 60,000. Chelsea are in sixth place with receipts of €79m.
Meanwhile, Uefa's report shows that the record underlying operating losses of 2011 have been transformed into the largest combined operating profits that European club football has ever produced.
European top-division clubs reported the first operating profit for five years in 2013, followed by the highest operating profit in history of €805m in 2014, with Manchester United leading the way with a figure of €140m.
The full report will be published by Uefa later on Wednesday.
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