Despite being 20 points behind first place in the current Championship standings, Aston Villa have the 20th highest wage bill in Europe, which equates to the joint seventh highest in England.
Villa, who currently sit in 13th place after just eight wins in 26 games, are amongst some of European football's biggest clubs as they continue to spend huge amounts on player wages - £110 million.
The £110 million wage bill is 73% of Aston Villa's total revenue.
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It also turns out Premier League strugglers Swansea City are another surprise inclusion in the list created by UEFA, coming in at 19th with another massive £110 million wage bill.
These findings featured in the eighth edition of the UEFA Club Licensing Benchmarking Report, which 'focuses on financial and off-the-pitch
developments in European club football'.
FC Barcelona and Real Madrid predictably make up the top two spots, while a total of 24 clubs had wage bills in excess of €100m, with nine of those clubs exceeding €200m:
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Here are the results:
The findings also show that only Real Madrid made more money from their stadium in 2015 than Arsenal did from the Emirates.
Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester United made up the top five, while Championship side Newcastle United featured in 16th place ahead of Galatasaray and FC Schalke.
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The top 20 comprises seven English clubs, five German clubs, four Spanish clubs and four clubs from elsewhere. Together, these 20 clubs generated just under €1,262m in gate receipts.
You can find more findings in the UEFA report found here
(H/T: UEFA)
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