Man City top salary chart with stars raking in average of £100,000 a week per player... as five Premier League sides make the top 20 of global sports teams



Manchester City are the best-paid sports team in the world

Their average first-team player gets £5.3m a year

Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool also in the top 20

Real Madrid and Barcelona in top five, with NY Yankees and LA Dodgers



Manchester City are the best-paid sports team in the world, with average first-team pay a whopping £5.3m a year, or £102,653 per week according to a new report that compares global earnings in the most popular leagues.

Five Premier League sides make the top 20 on the list, with Liverpool - City’s title showdown opponents from Sunday - in 20th place, earning an average of £3.4m per man per year.

Manchester United are at No 8 on £4.3m per man per year, Champions League semi-finalists Chelsea are at No 10 (nearly £4m) and Arsenal are at No 11 (£3.9m).



Scroll down to see the table of the world's highest-paid sports teams



High earners: Manchester City have topped a global sports salary list, with their squad paid £5.3m a year - an average of more than £100,000 a week

Big spender: City owner Sheik Mansour has invested hundreds of millions into making them title challengers

Blank cheque: Manuel Pellegrini could sign pretty much any player in the world for City

Two giants from American baseball, the New York Yankees and the LA Dodgers, as well as the two giants of Spanish football, Real Madrid and Barcelona, fill out the top five behind City.



The top 10 also includes the Brooklyn Nets of the NBA (at No 6), Bayern Munich (No 7), and the Chicago Bulls of the NBA (No 9).

The Global Sports Salaries Survey (GSSS), produced for ESPN The Magazine in the USA, has been tracking comparative pay at major sports teams for five years.



City players were earning an average of just under £1.5m a year each when Sheik Mansour arrived in 2008 but their pay has more than trebled in the six years of his ownership.

Chelsea have also seen their wages and fortunes soar since Roman Abramovich arrived at Stamford Bridge in 2003 but foreign sugar-daddy ownership is not restricted to elite European football.

Big hitters: The New York Yankees baseball team ranked second on the earners' list - where players earn £50,000 less than Man City stars on average

Coining it in: The Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team are third on the salary list with an average annual pay of £5.1m but they moved down from second place last year

The Brooklyn Nets were bought in 2010 by one of Abramovich’s fellow Russian billionaires, Mikhail Prokhorov.

Not only is Prokhorov footing the Nets’ $102m (around £61m) total payroll in 2013-14, or £4.5m per player this year, but he will need to pay an additional $70m (around £42m) or thereabouts in luxury tax for exceeding the NBA’s wage cap.

On the list: Chelsea were 10th in the rankings with a £3.9m wage bill and still have a chance of winning the Premier League title this season

Wealth: Roman Abramovich has poured millions into Chelsea since he became owner in 2003

Close call: Arsenal are just behind Chelsea in the survey. They advanced to the final of the FA Cup at the weekend, beating Wigan on penalties at Wembley

Sneaking in: Liverpool came in 20th in the salary list with an annual spend of £3.4m on wages each year. That could increase if they win their first league title in 24 years next month

Overpaid? Manchester United came in eighth in the list but have fallen short in the Premier League and Champions League this season

The GSSS looks solely at earnings for playing sport, not for endorsements or other extra-curricular activities. The 2014 report considers 294 teams in 15 leagues in 12 countries across seven different sports: football, baseball, basketball, gridiron, cricket, ice hockey and Aussie Rules football.



The report looks at numbers from either current or most recently completed seasons, depending on availability of accounts and other information.

The NBA is the highest-paying league as a whole, with 441 players at 30 teams in the 2013-14 season earning an average of £2.98m per year each.



The Premier League is the best paying football league in the world, with the average annual pay at £2.27m per player.

THE WORLD'S BEST PAID SPORTS TEAM BY AVERAGE FIRST-TEAM SALARY RANK (LAST YEAR)

TEAM

LEAGUE

AV. ANNUAL PAY (WEEKLY)

1 (1)

Manchester City

Premier League

£5,337,944 (£102,653)

2 (5)

New York Yankees

MLB

£5,286,628 (£101,666)

3 (2)

Los Angeles Dodgers

MLB

£5,119,701 (£98,456)

4 (3)

Real Madrid

La Liga

£4,993,393 (£96,027)

5 (4)

Barcelona

La Liga

£4,901,327 (£94,256)

6 (16)

Brooklyn Nets

NBA

£4,485,019 (£86,250)

7 (9)

Bayern Munich

Bundesliga

£4,402,905 (£84,671)

8 (12)

Manchester United

Premier League

£4,322,251 (£83,120)

9 (19)

Chicago Bulls

NBA

£3,985,706 (£76,648)

10 (8)

Chelsea

Premier League

£3,984,536 (£76,626)

11 (15)

Arsenal

Premier League

£3,901,923 (£75,037)

12 (20)

New York Knicks

NBA

£3,862,191 (£74,273)

13 (14)

Detroit Tigers

MLB

£3,833,510 (£73,721)

14 (11)

Philadelphia Phillies

MLB

£3,811,638 (£73,301)

15 (22)

Boston Red Sox

MLB

£3,763,451 (£72,374)

16 (17)

Miami Heat

NBA

£3,665,215 (£70,485)

17 (23)

San Francisco Giants

MLB

£3,613,741 (£69,495)

18 (35)

Juventus

Serie A

£3,512,696 (£67,552)

19 (7)

LA Lakers

NBA

£3,411,402 (£65,604)

20 (21)

Liverpool

Premier League

£3,403,783 (£65,457)

