Germany's Bundesliga has the highest average attendances while English clubs account for 56 percent of commercial debt among Europe's 732 first division clubs, football's governing body said in an 80-page report based on the 2008 financial year.
UEFA president Michel Platini said in the introduction that financially responsible clubs were at an unfair advantage when competing with those who were less restrained.
"The many clubs across Europe that continue to operate on a sustainable basis are finding it increasingly hard to co-exist and compete with clubs that incur costs and transfer fees beyond their means and report losses year-after-year," he said.
"While clubs' revenues have continued to rise, these have been entirely absorbed by the growth in costs undermining profitability and pushing many clubs to rely on debt or shareholders' contributions to finance operating activities.
"For the health of European club football, those many clubs that operate with financial discipline and sustainable business plans must be encouraged and this is why the entire football family requested and expressed full and unanimous support for the principles of financial fair play."
"Employee costs - mainly players - rose annually by more than 18 percent to more than 7 billion euros, considerably outpacing the 10.6 percent increase in reported revenues," said UEFA.
"English clubs, where stadium ownership is the norm, contain on their balance sheets an estimated 48 percent share of the total value of European balance sheet fixed assets and 56 percent of Europe-wide net commercial debt," it said.
The English debt totalled just under 4 billion euros, around four times more than Spain's La Liga, the next most indebted first division.
The Bundesliga's average first division attendance of 42,565 was the highest for the 2008-09 season, nearly 7,000 above the Premier League
