Football salaries-why stated as 'net'?

dinneenp

Hi,
The media talk about football players salaries in net terms and per week. Why?
Is it simply because saying X earns £600,000 per month sounds obscene? (£100k net per week roughly).
If that is it why would the media care?
For other industries it's always per year or month mentioned.
Just wondering,
Pa

Captain Havoc

I always thought it was gross and I assume it goes back to when people got paid weekly.

efb

I imagine it's gross and net won't be much lower if they hire a good accountant

SureYWouldntYa

Bigger is always better, or at least sounds better

Turtwig

It depends, income tax is a very significant factor. To take Ligue I for example talking in terms of gross is pointless as the French state has effectively a law taxing footballers and their respective clubs who are paid over a million. Coaxing Zlatan's by gross salary (approx €50 million) would, pardon the pun, be grossly misrepresenting how much income he'd actually receive from PSG (approx €10 million).

Note: All of this is excluding sponserships and the like.

nice_guy80

Depends on what offshore island the accountants are located on

ctrl-alt-delete

I thought it was just Goalkeepers wages that were in net.

gosplan

To make salary offers across nations.

So a wage in Spain and Germany can be put in common terms to a player from a third country.

8-10

My problem is they state it per week whereas in the real world people's salaries are always annual but paid monthly. Without looking it up I wouldn't know my weekly wage.

In the US they do it better as they state it per contract, gives you a much better sense of the cost of a transfer, in British soccer the media just focus on transfer fee and ignore the total outlay on wages. A 10m player to one club could be equivalent in total cost to a 5m player to another club. Yet the latter will be reported as the bargain transfer. Grinds my gears!

Pinturicchio

In other countries, Italy for example, it is reported in terms of annual salary.

I think net figures are used because tax rates vary from country to country so gross figures wouldn't be that helpful.

batistuta9

do they not report them as gross in england & net from the continent, especially france as said.

i think they report them weekly as it gives you an idea just how much they earn, football supporters were generally working class paid weekly, no salary nonsense.
15.6mil a year = lot of money.
300k a week =a more WTF response from people

dinneenp

Pinturicchio wrote: »

In other countries, Italy for example, it is reported in terms of annual salary.

I think net figures are used because tax rates vary from country to country so gross figures wouldn't be that helpful.

But helpful for whom? You'd imagine what is more relevant, maybe as interesting is how much they cost the club.

The media/people don't say a companies director/manager earn £x net.
Th health service is in the media but papers don't say "nurses work hard but only earn net £x per week/month

Dempsey

In the UK, negotiating is before tax, on the continent its after tax.

Richard Hillman

Some players are working as holding companies. Their accountant knows how much e.g Player A Ltd earns but once all the 'business' expenses and write offs are taken into account, then the businesses Net intake turns into an individuals gross salary. The holding company is usually based in Jersey.