Reigning pro football champions own league's largest payroll: data

Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors, the reigning South Korean professional football champions, also have the league's largest payroll and own its five 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 Classic, excluding the military club Sangju Sangmu.

The data showed that K League Classic players made 196.5 million won ($180,780) each on average.

For South Korean players, the average annual salary came to 168.6 million won, while the figure for foreign players was 437.3 million won.

In this file photo taken on Oct. 29, 2017, members of Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors celebrate their 2017 K League Classic championship after a 3-0 win over Jeju United at Jeonju World Cup Stadium in Jeonju, North Jeolla Province. (Yonhap)

Jeonbuk, which claimed their second title in three seasons, had the biggest payroll with 15.7 billion won. FC Seoul were a distant second with 9.4 billion won. Jeonbuk also had the largest average salary per player with 460.6 million won.

Jeonbuk boasted the five highest-paid Korean players: forward Kim Shin-wook (1.54 billion won), defender Kim Jin-soo (1.46 billion won), midfielder Shin Hyung-min (1.11 billion won), forward Lee Dong-gook (990.6 million won) and midfielder Lee Jae-sung (844.5 million won).

Among foreign players, Jeonbuk's Brazilian forward Edu led the way with 1.42 billion won.

In the second-tier K League Challenge, Busan IPark had the largest payroll with 4.33 billion won. (Yonhap)