Wages

PHB

Wage Bill(Last years):

Chelsea: £114.8m (£54.5m)
Man Utd: £76.8m (£79.5m)
Arsenal: £69.7m (£60.6m)
Liverpool: £65.6m (£54.4m)
Newcastle: £44.4m (£45.1m)


Any people still think Kenyon intends to make Chelsea profitable
Jesus christ, 114!

yom 1

and thats without any of the players signed last season by Jose or indeed his enormous wages either :eek:

cruiserweight

You can download a copy of the deloitte report at http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/article/0,1002,sid%253D70402%2526cid%253D73888,00.html

jesus_thats_gre

So they had revenues of 147 million? and wages of 114 million...

They plan to increase the revenues so yes, I think Kenyon will make them profitable.

cruiserweight

Lucky for Chelsea they are not in the G14, as the members of that organisation have a self imposed limit on what percentage of revenue can be spent on wages! I think it is around 75% and Chelsea's spending is around 80% I believe! This is to insure that the clubs can remain competitive while not risking going bankrupt in pursuit of success!

meditraitor

cruiserweight wrote:

You can download a copy of the deloitte report at http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/article/0,1002,sid%253D70402%2526cid%253D73888,00.html

Thats the 2003/04 report, what use is that?

redspider

Yeah, Deloitte have just released their report on the finances of football.

The money relationship with football is a strong one that affects who does what, where and what happens on the pitch. As much as we’d like to think about the skills of players, managers, and the effects of fans, its money which is the real driving force of football. Success begats money and money begats success. There are also “football-mad” chairmen/women who plough money into clubs for nostalgic reasons, or as in the case of Abramovich, for “tax-write-off/money laundering/amnesty purchase” reasons. And in England, the punters pay huge fees to watch the games on the box, paying Sky who in turn pay the clubs for the rights. Either way, ever since the game went professional in the 1800’s, football and money have been inextricably linked.

I haven’t read the report, it costs money, but the highlights are available here:
http://www.deloitte.co.uk/pdf/UK_ARFF_2005_highlights.pdf

The revenue of the European leagues in 2003/2004 is as follows:
Revenue Wages Profit
England 1,976 m eur 1,208 m eur +222
Italy 1,153 ? -341
Germany 1,058 ?
Spain 953 610
France 655 ? -102

England are way out in front with the main difference being their large TV deal and the prices fans are willing to pay at the turnstiles. One affects the other and the TV deal is the main catalyst. Germany and France are getting better deals on the way with Canal+ so should gain. Italian clubs have overspent on transfers and wages and most clubs are loss making and have accumulated losses.

Clubs Revenue Wages
1 Man U 256 m eur 115 m eur
4 Chelsea 214 171
6 Arsenal 169

I am interested in seeing the top-20 clubs in the world categorised by revenues/wages, etc, so whoever gets that do post it here. Man U are the top club on 256m eur, with Chelsea 4th and Arsenal 6th. These figures are for 2003/2004, and even then Chelsea’s wage bill was 171m eur compared with Man U’s 115 eur (77m ukp).

England also enjoys a tax structural advantage and hence can attract the same players more cheaply according to: “Deloitte calculate that the average Premiership player costs his club (including social insurance) around £0.9m a year (or £17,000 a week). Due to tax differences it would cost a French club, for example, 44% more ‘gross’ to pay a player the same net wage. Relative to other big European leagues, this is a significant structural advantage that Premiership clubs enjoy.”

No doubt more will be written up about this in the coming days.

Redspider

eirebhoy

Wages should not be over 50% of turnover according to something I read.

cruiserweight

meditraitor wrote:

Thats the 2003/04 report, what use is that?

Because that is the report that was just released!

cruiserweight

eirebhoy wrote:

Wages should not be over 50% of turnover according to something I read.

I think that it was commented by Deloitte that haveing wages less than 55% of turnover was a good, safe figure! But as can be seen quite a large number of clubs have percentages a lot larger than that! For example I noted that Liverpools was 71%, however part of that may be due to them not being in the Champions League that season!

redspider

cruiserweight wrote:

I think that it was commented by Deloitte that haveing wages less than 55% of turnover was a good, safe figure!

This is just a general guide, not an absolute. It depends on how much the remainder is to run he club, debt levels, how much is spent on the transfer market, etc. The G14 (with 18 or so clubs?) have agreed in principal not to overspend on wages. However, there are no sanctions against those that do. Additionally, many of the clubs provide players with "facilities" which are not included in salary figures, and are in many cases not taxed! The Italians seem to be masters of this with houses, property, and services supplied to the playing staff - gratis.

Whilst money is not controlled in some way, Football will have problems in my opinion. There is a debate that the most well-paid players dont have the fight to graft and win competitions, and examples include Real Madrid and AC Mlan. Football, unlike say boxing, is not ran on a "purse" basis.

My recommendation to assist the sport development as a spectacle is to bring in an absolute cap on collective wages, such as eur 50m pa, and make this a requirement to get a Uefa licence. Clubs are free to pay individuals whatever they like, but this cap will create a level playing field, so the likes of Real, Milan, Barca, Man U, Chelsea and Arsenal and Liverpool are forced to play within a similar maximum level of resources. Sports are allowed to have such rules and restrictions and the sooner football moves in that direction the better.

Redspider

PHB

I don't like the idea of wage caps, I think its unfair on players.
I mean its bad enough having to be restricted to not talk to other possible clubs, but to actually restrict their wages is just ludicrous, and wouldn't stand up in an EU court. They have enough problem with UEFA as it is

David19

PHB wrote:

I don't like the idea of wage caps, I think its unfair on players.
I mean its bad enough having to be restricted to not talk to other possible clubs, but to actually restrict their wages is just ludicrous, and wouldn't stand up in an EU court. They have enough problem with UEFA as it is

Won't someone think of the poor players?!?

Lol they make a fortune. A salary cap won't change that. It'll just mean football will survive rather than collapse under a mountain of debt as some clubs already have.

PHB

So, why should they be forced to accept salary caps when we don't have to?
Just because they play something we watch, then we should have the right to cap their salary.
The fact that they make lots of money irrelvent.
The market should decide what the players get paid, and salary caps are incredibly anti-free trade and without a doubt would result in player strikes

wheres me jumpa

that is amazing. i knew players were paid a huge amount but when you see the total it suddenly hits you how hard it is for newly promoted/struggling teams.

i know its such a granny of a question but do people think players should be earning this amount?

Jivin Turkey

PHB wrote:

salary caps are incredibly anti-free trade and without a doubt would result in player strikes

Haha that would be a first.

Salary caps are like reverse trade unions, it happens every day the other way around. There is nothing illegal or anti-trade about them.

Salary caps are in theory good, and promote fairer competition, but at the same time there is always going to be rogues who stretch the boundries of said caps in order to secure the best players. It would be difficult to police and players salaries would become a lot less transparent (not that they are particularly at the moment).

Guy:Incognito

Yeah I'm sure Beckham just manage to stay out of the gutter without his wages rising from €120,000 pw.

Theres a lot of people a lot better educated than himself that would need up to 5 years to earn that much, and he gets it every week.

David19

PHB wrote:

So, why should they be forced to accept salary caps when we don't have to?
Just because they play something we watch, then we should have the right to cap their salary.
The fact that they make lots of money irrelvent.
The market should decide what the players get paid, and salary caps are incredibly anti-free trade and without a doubt would result in player strikes

I don't think they'll be forced to accept it.
I think its probably too late to bring it in. I can't see wages going up anymore tbh. They'll might bring in pay to play contracts though. I know Palace are trying to get Ventola to sign one at the moment.

applehunter

:mad: Money is only cunnency

Lex Luthor

cruiserweight wrote:

I think that it was commented by Deloitte that haveing wages less than 55% of turnover was a good, safe figure! But as can be seen quite a large number of clubs have percentages a lot larger than that! For example I noted that Liverpools was 71%, however part of that may be due to them not being in the Champions League that season!

also I think it includes all the pay-offs to Houllier and his crew

redspider

Yes, the wages figures include those for Coaching/Management staff, etc, although the vast bulk is for players. In Liverpool's case last year, there were very termination sums paid to Houllier and his team, including Thompson, which were in the Liverpool financial report and mentioned at something like 10m. Now that Houllier has a job at Lyon, I'm not sure if contractually there is some sort of clawback on some of that.

In terms of the 50m cap, this doesnt have to be an individual player salary cap. As I said, a team has the choice to pay individuals as much as they like, but it will prevent the likes of Chelsea and the other top teams with huge amou8nts oif money effectively having two top class teams, and even have more that they can put out on loan and still pay their salaries (ie: Crespo). I'm not sure if 50m is the right amount, but say if a squad is kept to a limit of 23 players, 50m is not a limit on individuals salaries. At the moment, clubs like Chelsea have squads of 40-something players and could even afford to sack the likes of Mutu. Financially, Chelsea are operating in a different planet and rules sch as the 50m cap would mean they are limited to some extent.

Uefa coud bring it in over time, no doubt about that, and it would be better for the game. They say that Beckham can bringi in 25m a year with hs brand, and there are individual rights obviously for that sort of thing. So, for ecample, that could be considered as extra income, selling shirts or whatever with a split some going to Real and some to the player.

Having squad salary caps will help the game in the long run as teams will be closer and will make the league more competitive. We've just had the Arsenal/Man U duopoly in England for the last 10 years or so, only fr it to be broken by money, and illegally sourced Abramovich money at that. Money is deciding who wins the league, not skill, guile, cunning, agility, football brains, etc. Something needs to be done.

Redspider