Amateur Coupe de France semi-finalist FC Versailles have a €2.8m budget, five times last season’s | OneFootball

Le Parisien report that Coupe de France semi-finalists, and fourth tier (technically) amateur club, FC Versailles have seen their financial resources grow to fives times the size of last season’s budget due to investment from the City real estate group this campaign.

Unlike previous semi-finalists from the lower divisions, a fairly common occurrence in France, only three of the Versailles squad have day jobs, the rest of the squad are effectively fully professional as footballers, says the paper.

The squad’s highest monthly salary is €6000, while the average is around €3000 and some of those who were signed from the third tier earn more with Versailles now than they did with their previous clubs. Four new players arrived in January, including those with experience of Ligue 2 and top-tier football abroad. Those resources have also been used to hire an experienced administrative team.

Although the gap between Versailles and this week’s semi-final opponents, Nice, may be large in league places, the true gap is narrower than would appear.