The latest report from Deloitte on football finance confirms what Yarco and others have kept saying on here about the boost to club finances from the new TV deal going straight into higher player wages and transfer fees (as opposed to into the manager's hands in the form of vastly more money to buy better quality players): "Almost 75% of the Premier League clubs' revenue increase in 2011-12 was spent on wages, which increased by £64m, or 4%, to £1.7bn. It meant the overall Premier League wages-to-revenue ratio remained at 70%." In other words, more headline revenue, but very little net increase in the amount available for improving one's squad. OK, that was last year. But does anyone seriously believe it will be any different this time?
IMO, some of the 'WCT' - eg Rooney, Carrol, Tevez and many, many others are bleeding the clubs dry by DEMANDING higher and higher wages. Some of these players are getting paid more in a month than MOST loyal fans will earn in a lifetime!!! HOW can that be justified??? I'd really like to see a cap on players salaries to put a stop to these excessive demands!!!
Which may well mean that they - rugby style, move abroad to play. Thereby allowing young British players a chance to improve by playing at the top level, so that Stuart Pearce can't whinge about an ever-diminishing base from which to select his squads. Job done!
I'd love to see a cap too but, it is the fool chairmen who bow to these demands. If the clubs can't afford the wages then who is at fault? Not the player or his agent, the players haven't a clue about the real world these days as they are so far removed from it. But with the latest mega money TV deal who should get rich? The mainly foreign owners? Chief execs? or the talent? I think the cap could only be set as a proportion of revenue e.g. max 70% in player wages, OK the rich will get richer but thats the case anyway. Financial fair play is a grand idea, will it work? Sadly not. I'd like to see at least ticket prices drop for us fans as relative to the TV money its peanuts. Look at germany vast gates with smaller prices. I'd love to see NCFC lead the way by increasing capacity to say 35-40k and drop prices by 1/2 to 1/3. Get the next generation in at affordable prices and become bigger. obviously from a lower base prices could slowly be increased but lets look after the fans, the life blood of football! Bah!
From memory the break down by club showed Norwich's wage to revenue % was much lower. Clubs like QPR (at over 100%) had skewed that % overall. Still you're probably right that the next round of contract negotiations will probably include a wage hike. Norwich can't have much influence on what other clubs do but i'm pleased that we seem to run it sensibly.
^ well said. i think i'm right in saying that norwich city are the only premier league club who spend less than 50% of their revenue on wages â we certainly were the only club in 2011-12. despite the influx on new tv money that comes through the door next season, don't expect our club to start throwing the cash about willy nilly at players extravagant demands â we won't pay them. if that means being unable to compete financially with every other club in the top flight then so be it â we look after number 1. once the ground is expanded and most importantly filled every week, THEN we will see a natural progression in what we are able to pay players. as i understand it (though i could be wrong), even the signing of RvW is within last seasons wage constraints (around 23k a week â bassong is on more than this but spurs pay some of his wage and we pay our amount within this bracket).
A wage cap would be brilliant for the game, but only if it was introduced across all leagues, in all nations. Otherwise, as was mentioned, players would simple move to a different league. We've reached a ridiculous situation now where teams - Man City, Monaco, and PSG for example - are offering silly money to attract the best players, without thinking about sustainability. A wage structure linked to revenue would be ideal. If you can organically grow the club, your ability to attract better players will increase in line with the finances. Clubs with a sugar daddy shouldn't be allowed to simply walk in and add as many zeros as they like to the cheques they sign. Football is supposedly a business, but as it stands, a lot of clubs aren't run as such, and those that are face challenges to maintain their integrity. Look at Swansea. If the stories are true, (a big if I know), Laudrup is frustrated by the board's unwillingness to go against its past spending strategy.
clubs will find a way around a wage cap, just as they will find a way around ffp regulations. it's a shame but that's how i see it.
Yep, training ground sponsorship is the first of no doubt many ways of pumping extra money into clubs from your personal wealth.
Well on the second part of that, it's surprisingly not that uncommon, it still frees up a large amount of wages and a squad place for Spurs, and the offer helps make him attractive to us. If we're paying £23k, they might only be paying him £10k perhaps, so they're still better off for selling him. I'd expect that's only the case for the first year too, and then we'll pick up the rest after that.
dh has pretty much cleared that one up. bassong was a high earner at spurs but they wanted him off the wage bill. we weren't prepared to pay him a full wage but could pay the fee, so it suited both parties if we pay what we are comfortable with and spurs make up the rest. i'm sure he's taken a pay cut to join us, even factoring in spurs contribution, but i don't know what they pay him. i think they are paying his contribution for the remainder of his contract that would have run at spurs, which was two years if i remember correctly, therefore we have 1 more year of help from spurs.
This Bassong deal is sounding more and more like the bargain of the season. Makes Michu look like overpriced
Very interesting reading about that Bassong thing, it's something I've heard of in other cases (in fact it once happened to me on football manager, one of my players would only move to a smaller club if i paid the extra and I needed to get him off the squad). I assume come the end of next season we'll have to decide whether we can sustain him. Probably the answer will be yes by then.
Probably the most high profile deal of that kind was Bellamy's loan move to Cardiff three seasons ago. Reputedly Man City were so desperate to get him out of the dressing room they are said to have paid some vast propoprtion of his wages and Cardiff ended up paying very little. Remember all the tosh about "Golden boy from the Valleys coming home"?
I suspect that City player's wages will go up some this year, but it could be that clubs keeping their wages reasonable will benefit more from the new money. With a core squad of 21 going forward into next season (not including Fox and Barnett who will probably move on), City will only need 4-5 players this summer at the new inflated prices and wages compared to the 11 players brought in last season. If CH decides to retain Ayala or Vaughan, this factor increases further, but either way the emphasis can be on quality for the few players needed.
