Manchester United wage bill balloons to almost £300m - the second-highest in Europe behind Barcelona

Manchester United’s wage bill has ballooned to almost £300 million following increased salary payments from the Champions League and the arrival of Alexis Sanchez.

United announced a profit of £44.1m for the 2017/18 season on the back of record revenues of £590m but the most eye-catching figure was a dramatic 12.3 per cent jump in wages to £295.9m.

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The sharp increase was primarily attributed to a rise in “player salary uplifts” relating to the club’s return to the Champions League last season, despite a dismal Round of 16 exit to Sevilla, and means United now have the second-highest earning squad in Europe behind Barcelona, whose 2016/17 wage bill stood at £336m.

Although United removed Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Wayne Rooney, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Adnan Januzaj from their wage bill over the course of the last financial year, the signing of Sanchez from Arsenal in January in a £500,000-a-week deal, and the arrival of Romelu Lukaku, Nemanja Matic and Victor Lindelof, also impacted on the salary bill hike.

Wages now account for 50.2 per cent of turnover - a healthy figure still, but up from 45.3 per cent in 2016/17.

The latest figures came as Ed Woodward, United’s executive vice-chairman, offered his backing to Jose Mourinho at the same time as leaving the manager under no illusions about the importance of winning and blooding home-grown talent.

United’s 1-1 draw at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday left Mourinho’s side trailing Liverpool, the Premier League leaders, by eight points after just six games.

“Everyone at the club is working tirelessly to add to Manchester United’s 66 and Jose’s 25 trophies - that is what our passionate fans and our history demands,” Woodward said.

“It is easy to get caught up in the game-by-game fluctuations of our season or even the relatively minor pieces of business and industry news, I would like to take this opportunity to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

“We are the biggest sports team in the world as measured by the number of fans. We know that position is one that requires continued effort and investment to maintain. Our board, our investors and everyone at the club are in line with the fans on what we need to do on the pitch and that is to win trophies.

“That is one of the reasons why we hired Jose Mourinho and we have already won three with him.”

Woodward and Mourinho’s relationship was tested over the summer after some of the manager’s transfer targets were vetoed.

But while reiterating United’s ability to compete for the best players in the transfer market - the club have forecast revenues of between £615m and £630m for 2018/19 - Woodward underlined the importance of a clear pathway to the first team for academy talents.

“Off the pitch it is clearly important to drive the business forward giving us the financial muscle to compete in the highly competitive transfer market,” Woodward said.

“This allows us to continue to blend world-class purchased talent with our continued development of top academy graduates.

“Our academy continues to be a huge source of pride in delivering talent for the first team with materially increased investment in recent years.

“We are committed to our philosophy of blending top academy graduates with world-class players and are proud that, once again, last season we had more academy graduate minutes on the pitch than any other Premier League club.”