[Saba Sports News] According to Brazilian media reports, the wage bill of Santos FC’s men’s team has exploded, while the women’s team’s salary is only 1.8% of the men’s average. Reports state that the men’s team salaries at Santos saw explosive growth in 2025, the year the club brought back Neymar and returned to the Brazilian Serie A. According to the club’s financial report released last year, the total monthly payroll in December reached 20.5 million reais (around 3.4522 million euros). This expenditure covers 33 first-team players, meaning each earns an average of 620,000 reais per month (approximately 104,400 euros). In contrast, in December 2024 — before Neymar’s return and when Santos had just finished its campaign in the Brazilian Serie B — the total salary for the 30-man men’s first squad was 7.271 million reais (around 1.2244 million euros), with an average monthly salary of 242,000 reais (roughly 40,700 euros) per player.
The editor believes that Santos remains one of the few clubs in Brazilian football that discloses women’s team salaries in its financial reports, yet the pay gap between the men’s and women’s sides continues to widen. In December 2025, Santos announced that the total salary expenditure for its women’s team stood at 398,000 Brazilian reals, a figure even lower than the average monthly salary of a single player in the men’s team. On average, each player of Santos’ women’s team earned 11,700 Brazilian reals in December, which accounts for merely 1.8% of the men’s team’s average salary.