From 32% to 150% of Revenue on Wages: How Much Ekstraklasa Clubs Spend on Pay
In the 2025/2026 season Widzew Łódź spent 150% of its revenue on wages – more than the club earned at all. Jagiellonia Białystok, the league’s third-placed side and a participant in the Conference League league phase, kept its ratio down to just 32%. Between those two figures lies the whole rest of PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa, described in the latest “Finansowa Ekstraklasa” report, which Grant Thornton prepares every year in cooperation with Ekstraklasa SA and the clubs. The edition for the 2025/2026 season covers the period from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026 and is the fourth in a row.
The wages-to-revenue ratio – club by club
Grant Thornton calculates the ratio using a methodology close to UEFA’s: it divides a club’s total wages (including amortisation of the value of players) by its total revenue, transfers included. From the 2025/2026 season UEFA rules cap this ratio at 70%. Below, the two seasons side by side; Bruk-Bet Termalica did not provide data.
| Club | 2024/25 season | 2025/26 season |
|---|---|---|
| Jagiellonia Białystok | 37% | 32% |
| Górnik Zabrze | 47% | 41% |
| Lech Poznań | 52% | 42% |
| Legia Warszawa | 48% | 46% |
| Pogoń Szczecin | 55% | 50% |
| Lechia Gdańsk | 75% | 53% |
| Motor Lublin | 53% | 57% |
| Cracovia | 59% | 60% |
| Arka Gdynia* | 83% | 66% |
| Raków Częstochowa | 50% | 67% |
| Wisła Płock* | 97% | 67% |
| GKS Katowice | 76% | 75% |
| Radomiak Radom | 93% | 75% |
| Piast Gliwice | 73% | 75% |
| KGHM Zagłębie Lubin | 99% | 81% |
| Korona Kielce | 65% | 84% |
| Widzew Łódź | 47% | 150% |
| Bruk-Bet Termalica Nieciecza* | n/a | n/a |
*For the newly promoted sides (Arka Gdynia, Wisła Płock, Bruk-Bet Termalica Nieciecza) the ratio for the 2024/2025 season still relates to matches in the 1 Liga.
Jagiellonia has the healthiest wages-to-revenue relationship in the league, even though its wages are higher in nominal terms than a year earlier – its revenue simply grew faster. At the other extreme: Widzew’s ratio shot up by more than a hundred percentage points. This was driven by wages rising by over 230% while revenue grew by just 5% compared with the 2024/2025 season. In total, 11 clubs achieved a ratio below 70% this season.
Legia broke PLN 100 million, Lech spends the smallest share of its costs on wages
Besides the ratio itself, the report also gives nominal amounts. Legia Warszawa was the only club in the league to cross the barrier of PLN 100 million in annual wages (excluding player amortisation) – PLN 115.9 million, about 45% of its total operating costs (PLN 258.3 million, the highest in the league). Lech Poznań spent PLN 78.3 million on wages, i.e. only 34% of its operating costs (PLN 230.0 million), the lowest in the league. Lechia Gdańsk (41%) and Cracovia (42%) come out similarly low. The average share of wages in operating costs for the whole league was 56%, and the combined costs of all the clubs were PLN 1,529 million, i.e. almost as much as the league’s combined revenue (PLN 1,587 million).
| Club | Operating costs 2025/26 |
|---|---|
| Legia Warszawa | PLN 258.3 million |
| Lech Poznań | PLN 230.0 million |
| Widzew Łódź | PLN 148.1 million |
| Raków Częstochowa | PLN 128.7 million |
| Pogoń Szczecin | PLN 90.9 million |
| Jagiellonia Białystok | PLN 87.0 million |
| KGHM Zagłębie Lubin | PLN 78.9 million |
| Górnik Zabrze | PLN 77.8 million |
| Cracovia | PLN 75.7 million |
| Lechia Gdańsk | PLN 49.8 million |
| Wisła Płock | PLN 48.3 million |
| Piast Gliwice | PLN 46.5 million |
| Korona Kielce | PLN 45.9 million |
| Motor Lublin | PLN 42.6 million |
| GKS Katowice | PLN 41.5 million |
| Arka Gdynia | PLN 39.8 million |
| Radomiak Radom | PLN 39.2 million |
| Bruk-Bet Termalica Nieciecza | no data |
A high wage bill does not by itself guarantee points. The most expensive league point this season cost Legia – PLN 2.36 million in wages (excluding amortisation) for every point won, with Widzew right behind (PLN 1.99 million). Neither of these clubs won a place in the European cups. By comparison, the champions of Poland, Lech Poznań, won a point at a cost of PLN 1.31 million, and the best efficiency in the league was recorded by the runners-up Górnik Zabrze, playing on a decidedly smaller budget than the clubs with the highest revenue.
A separate item in the budgets is the youth academies: the PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa clubs spent a total of PLN 142 million on them, 45% more than a year earlier. The leader was Legia Warszawa (PLN 31 million, +80%), ahead of Lech Poznań (PLN 25.25 million, +26%) and KGHM Zagłębie Lubin (PLN 14.63 million, +11%). The least was allocated to academies by Radomiak Radom (PLN 0.98 million) and Korona Kielce (PLN 1.69 million).
When the owner, not the supporter, covers the salaries
Some clubs received top-ups from their shareholders in the form of capital increases – according to the report’s methodology this is not revenue generated by the company, so it is not counted in revenue. But in practice they cover part of the wage costs, so Grant Thornton also calculated the ratio with them added. The record holder here is Widzew Łódź: from its majority shareholder the club received PLN 143.6 million of recapitalisation, which pulls its wage ratio down from 150% to 48%, clearly below the league average (53%).
| Club | Wages ratio | Recapitalisation | Ratio after recapitalisation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Widzew Łódź | 150% | PLN 143.6 million | 48% |
| Korona Kielce | 84% | PLN 3.0 million | 77% |
| GKS Katowice | 75% | PLN 9.0 million | 63% |
| Wisła Płock | 67% | PLN 9.5 million | 55% |
| Pogoń Szczecin | 50% | PLN 13.1 million | 44% |
| Górnik Zabrze | 41% | PLN 4.5 million | 39% |
Of the six recapitalised clubs, only Korona Kielce (77%) stays above the 70% threshold once these payments are added. Widzew and GKS Katowice drop below the limit. Without any top-ups, KGHM Zagłębie Lubin (81%) as well as Radomiak Radom and Piast Gliwice (75% each) are also above 70%.
A Polish salary against the European backdrop
The whole of Ekstraklasa sits on a scale that is considered small in European football. According to UEFA’s annual report “The European Club Finance and Investment Landscape”, footballers’ pay in Europe rose in 2024 by just 1.8%, and in five of the continent’s top twenty leagues, including France and Spain, wage costs fell. Ekstraklasa as a whole is within the UEFA limit: the league’s average ratio was 53%. The limit, however, applies to individual clubs, and six of them exceeded 70%.
The scale of the difference is well illustrated by Robert Lewandowski. According to press reports, his salary at Barcelona rose from €20 million gross in the first season to €32 million in 2024/2025, and in his last season at the club, 2025/2026, was to be €26 million. At an exchange rate of about PLN 4.3 to the euro that is around PLN 112 million, almost as much as Legia spent in the same season on all the wages at the club (PLN 115.9 million), and about 45% more than its first team and staff cost it (PLN 77.0 million). Since summer 2026 Lewandowski has played for the American club Chicago Fire. How his earnings compare with the best-paid footballers in the world, and how the stars’ figures relate to clubs’ revenue, we set out in the comparison of club revenue with the earnings of football stars.
Where clubs get the money for wages
Wages are one pillar of a club’s budget, alongside the central pool from television and marketing rights and, for clubs playing in Europe, UEFA payments. How exactly the central league pool is divided we explain in the text Ekstraklasa: how the money and the competition format work. UEFA’s rates for the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League, and how much Polish clubs actually earn from Europe, we describe in the texts Money in the UEFA European cups and How much Polish clubs earn in the European cups. And about the stadiums themselves, ticket prices and attendance, which drive part of this revenue, we write in the text Ekstraklasa stadiums 2026/27.
Widzew spent one and a half times what it earned on wages, and the gap was filled by the owner. The question is how long he will be ready to keep topping it up.
Sources and methodology
The data on the Ekstraklasa clubs comes from the report “Finansowa Ekstraklasa”, edition for the 2025/2026 season, prepared by Grant Thornton in cooperation with Ekstraklasa SA: grantthornton.pl. This concerns the wages-to-revenue ratios for the 2024/2025 and 2025/2026 seasons (17 clubs, excluding Bruk-Bet Termalica), nominal amounts of wages and operating costs, the ratios after taking recapitalisation into account, the cost of winning a point and youth-academy costs. The league’s total revenue (PLN 1,587 million) comes from the “Key findings” section, and the total costs (PLN 1,529 million) from the “Operating costs” chapter.
The Europe-wide context (a 1.8% rise in wages in 2024, a fall in wage costs in five of the twenty top leagues) comes from UEFA’s report “The European Club Finance and Investment Landscape”, 2025 edition: ecfil.uefa.com. The report contains KPIs for all 55 UEFA member associations, but we could not find in it a publicly available, direct comparison of Ekstraklasa’s wage ratio with other leagues – so we limit ourselves here to the general European trend, without claiming any specific place for Poland in a ranking.
The data on Robert Lewandowski’s earnings at FC Barcelona (€20 million, €26 million, peak €32 million, an announced drop to €26 million) comes from reports by Goal.pl (15 March 2025, citing the Catalan daily “Sport”) and is not an official statement by the club or the player. Lewandowski’s move to Chicago Fire: MLSsoccer.com. The conversion into zloty (rate about PLN 4.30 to the euro) and the comparison with Legia Warszawa’s wage bill is an editorial estimate, made solely for illustrative purposes.