Italian football is going through a slimming down period, including the giants of the league. Juventus, the champions, were the only club to significantly increase their wage bill, which is led by Gianluigi Buffon who makes over €6 million a season, ranked for highest in the Serie A along with Daniele De Rossi of Roma and Wesley Sneijder of Inter.

But it’s mostly been about cutting costs, preparing for the FFP, as UEFA are already withholding payments from 23 clubs around Europe who haven’t been complying with the news set of regulations, and simply coping with the troubling financial situation that’s hit Italy, like plenty of other countries around Europe, pretty hard.

AC Milan cut their wage bill by about €60 million, although they’re still the highest paying team in Italy with €120 million on the list, with Alexandre Pato being the highest earner, making €4 million a season, although he has been pretty useless over the last couple of years. I wonder if they regret not selling him to PSG when they had the chance last January.

Inter, who have also been pretty active as a seller, offloading Maicon, Julio Cesar and Diego Forlan managed to cutback €40 on expenses with the release and sales of those players, putting them at third in the league in wages, with Sneijder behing the team’s highest paid player. Roma are next with €95 million on the books, followed by Lazio, who spend €66.2 on salaries, with Miroslav Klose’s €2.1 million a season as the highest earner. Napoli are sixth, paying wages of €53.2 million. Edinson Cavani making €4.5 million a season.

A big drop-off occurs from here, leading us to Fiorentina, who have Stevan Jovetic, making €2.5 million a season as their most expensive and coveted player. Next are Sampdoria, who pay Angelo Palombo €1.5 million a season. Genoa pay Marco Boriello about the same amount to be their highest paid player, followed by Bologna with Alberto Gilardino, Atalanta with German Denis, Palermo with Fabrizio Miccoli, Torino with Rolano Bianchi, Udinese with Antonio Di Natale, Parma with Amauri, Siena with Gaetano D’Agostino, Catania to goalkeeper Mariano Andujar, Cagliari to Daniele Conti, Chievo to Sergio Pellissier and Pescara to Mervan Celik.

The rest of the league’s highest paid players – Francesco Totti (Roma), €5 million; Edinson Cavani (Napoli) and Diego Milito (Inter), €4.5 million; Estaban Cambiasso (Inter), Philippe Mexes (Milan), Alexandre Pato (Milan) and Robinho (Milan),  €4 million.

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