The highest wages in Ligue 1

Wages tend to only be heading in one direction these days. Those at the top of the game are able to receive eye-watering sums with long contracts, but that is not the case at every club.

There are few leagues where the financial disparity between the top and bottom of the division is wider than in Ligue 1. Paris Saint-Germain are able to pay their players monstrous amounts of money, with numerous individuals earning the equivalent of entire squads from other clubs in the same competition.

The list of top earners in Ligue 1 is not entirely dominated by PSG as the likes of Monaco, Lyon and Marseille can still pay pretty handsome sums to their best players, but the margin for error is certainly slimmer.

Here are the best-paid players in the French top flight and the figures that they receive each year from their clubs.

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The highest wages in Ligue 1

Correct as of March 30 (via L'Equipe)

Did you really need to be told who the best-paid player in Ligue 1 is? It was always going to be Kylian Mbappe, and that is not a new thing, either. You may have thought that Lionel Messi's arrival was going to oust Mbappe from the top spot, but the Argentine actually became the third-best-paid player in the league.

He was being paid €40.6m (£35.6m) per season at PSG, putting him slightly behind Neymar and very far behind Mbappe. It is staggering that, whilst certainly a better player, Mbappe is paid almost double what his Brazilian colleague earns.

The stranglehold that Paris Saint-Germain have over this list is hardly a surprise, but it doesn't stop it from being shocking. Just three players from other teams were able to make it into the top 15, and that is only after you remove Messi and Sergio Ramos whose PSG contracts will expire at the end of June.

It shows what an incredible job Lille did to win the title in 2020/21, and particularly how well RC Lens did to get within two points of PSG in the 2022/23 campaign. On the flip side, it highlights some of the issues running through the capital side. They should never even come close to not winning the league in France, but their own internal fighting and mismanagement mean that there is always a circus going on next to the football pitch.

You can have all the stars in the world, but if they are not settled and cohesive, you won't completely stroll to a league title and you certainly won't win the Champions League.

Many would claim that there are better players in Ligue 1 outside of PSG than Wissam Ben Yedder, but he has been a very solid striker for a long time. After four years at Monaco, it may well be that he is receiving loyalty bonuses that have helped him rise up the list.

It would essentially take QSI tiring of their PSG project and pulling out entirely for Ligue 1 to have a serious competitive balance again where this list of names is more varied, but even if they sold the club, it take someone with the same wealth to buy it.