Did some (probably wrong) maths to try and work out how much we have to pay the guy to match his wages. He's reportedly on 3m euro's a year, so ~£50k a week gross or 43k after tax in Russia. Due to tax in the UK 50k gross would be 28k post tax at the additional rate (?), so we would need to up our wage offer by 56% to match their 43k. By my maths to match 50k gross in Russia we would have to pay very roughly 80k gross. If you believe Forster is really on 90k then that's doable but right at our limit. Feel free to point out any obvious errors there, got a feeling there might be some since i don't know a lot about how tax works at high incomes.
I've got a tax calculating app that tells me we'd need to pay between £90k and £100k gross for him to hit £50k net. Of course that assumes "normal" tax arrangements. I imagine there are ways around him paying all that. Image rights payments being paid to a company registered overseas, that sort of thing.
Close - he's on 3.8m Euro annually at Spartak - so around 73,000 euros a week @ 1.15 = £63,500 gross. At Spartak his net wage is 63,576 euro which works out to around £55,300 @ 1.15. To earn a net wage of £55,300 weekly over here we would have to pay him a gross wage of around £105,000.
Good point. I've got my nets and grosses mixed up and was looking at £50k net rather than £43k. In which case you'd be right, to match that it'd be just over £80k. If the actual wage figures are different then obviously it all changes. Plus he might want ("need" is too strong a word at this pay level) a wage increase. I have no idea what the cost of living is in Russia.
Reading the article that also includes the signing on bonus spread over the contract so it may be less than that we have to beat depending on the terms. I've said before but i find it so hard to put faith in reported wages not least because of how complicated they are.
Plus everyone here is assuming that he would pay tax at the normal rate. I've always assumed (maybe wrongly) that footballers would be like contractors, in that they are effectively self employed and just do their tax once a year. They would have the best accountants and there is no way they would pay 40% on their earnings if this was the case
Since we're on the subject of wages , the Times have release their annual highest paid player list again and for some reason they've decided forster isn't on 90k anymore as lemina is now our highest on 80k.
Pretty sure that when the deal went though local journos said that his salary was nowhere near £130,000. I'd take that whole list with a pinch of salt!
It is probably like someone mentioned the other day that the difference between the top earner at Palace and Bournemouth is huge compared to the lower earners. Where as at Saints there is much less of a range. Saints could afford to pay someone Defoe money, but not have lots of players on like 60-80k as well
