Lowest salaries but best in the league

LONDON • Leicester City's success in leading the Premier League is made all the more remarkable after the latest available figures showed they have the smallest salary bill in the top flight, apart from the newly promoted teams.

Claudio Ranieri's side had a wage bill of £57.4 million (S$110.6 million) in 2014-15, just a quarter of the staff costs of Chelsea, who were the biggest payers with an annual bill of £215.6 million.

A wages "league table" also shows Tottenham Hotspur, Leicester's main rivals for the Premier League title, are punching considerably above their weight.

The north London club spent £100.8 million on wages, only slightly more than half the amount of that each spent by Arsenal, Manchester United and Manchester City.

The figures also make grim reading for Aston Villa - having the seventh-highest wage bill in the top flight points to serious underachievement for the division's bottom club. The same could also be said of Chelsea, 10th in the table.

The wage bills are all available from the clubs' annual accounts posted on Companies House although two clubs, Sunderland and Bournemouth, have yet to register theirs.

THE TIMES, LONDON

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on April 16, 2016, with the headline Lowest salaries but best in the league. Subscribe