Jeonbuk have K League's highest payroll: data

Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors, the reigning South Korean professional football champions, have the league's highest payroll and employ its eight highest-paid players, data showed Friday.

The K League, operators of the professional competitions, released salary data on 11 clubs in the first-division K League 1, excluding the military club Sangju Sangmu. The data doesn't include money paid for the Asian Football Confederation Champions League or the Korea Football Association Cup.

The data showed that K League 1 players made 198 million won (US$176,170) each on average for the 2018 season. Last season, the K League 1 players' average salary was 196.5 million won.

For South Korean players, the average annual salary in 2018 came to 138.8 million won, while the figure for foreign players was 386.9 million won.

Jeonbuk, which claimed their fourth title in the last five seasons, had the biggest payroll with 17.7 billion won. Ulsan were a distant second with 9.3 billion won, followed by FC Seoul with 8.1 billion won.

Jeonbuk, owned by South Korea's top automaker Hyundai Motor Co., also had the highest average salary per player at 521.9 million won, followed by Ulsan Hyundai FC, owned by Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., with 267.4 million won.

Daegu FC, the South Korean FA Cup winners and seventh in the 2018 K League 1, had the lowest average salary per player with 98 million won, followed by Gyeongnam FC, the runners-up in the K League 1, with 127 million won.

Jeonbuk boasted the five highest-paid Korean players: forward Kim Shin-wook (1.6 billion won), defender Kim Jin-soo (1.23 billion won), midfielder Shin Hyung-min (1.07 billion won), forward Lee Dong-gook (1.02 billion won) and defender Hong Jeong-ho (963.8 million won).

Among foreign players, Jeonbuk's Brazilian forward Ricardo Lopes led the way with 1.28 billion won, followed by two Brazilian compatriots, Tiago Alves (1.24 billion won) and Carlos Adriano (1.22 billion won). Suwon Samsung Bluewings' Montenegrin striker Dejan Damjanovic was fourth with 944 million won, while Ulsan's Brazilian striker Junior Negrao was fifth with 865 million won.

In the second-tier K League 2, Busan IPark had the largest payroll with 4.15 billion won. Seongnam FC, who earned the K League 1 promotion, had the fourth largest payroll with 2.95 billion won.

The average annual salary for the K League 2 players was 73.5 million won.(Yonhap)