I looked at the HDM and somebody was saying that Wigan - who went down - had an income of about £80m and wages of £40m. It made me think of Hull City's financial strategy. Say if we have an income of £80m, wages of £40m and transfer fees of £20m. If the wages are spread among 25 players that's an average of £30k per week. Some players could be on significantly more and others on significantly less. There's similarities with our previous time in the Premier League but I think our income is greater than before. I would think that we should be able to get a good squad with these figures. It would depend on good players knowing our plans without the selling clubs being so aware. I want us to make a serious attempt to stay up and I think it is possible. I'm worried if we try to save too much money and mess around with Chester and Elmo. We definately need a revamp in our squad - especially with strikers and goalkeepers. Other Premier League clubs think nothing of spending £5m each on a couple of players and we should be the same if the players are good. A lot of clubs have a ground capacity of less than 30k. If we can extend our ground to 34k that would help a lot. What do other people think?
What bothers me most about the increased income is, will it simply be passed on proprtionaly to players in fees and wages? If all premier league clubs have their income doubled for example, what is to stop them simply upping their offers of transfer fees and wages in the same manner. This would result in the clubs being no better off.
While I really want us to stay up (and believe that if anyone can keep us up Steve Bruce can) I do not want us to go paying silly money for players. Nor do I want us to be held to ransom by anyone (not even Elmo + Chester) over wages. Our recent history tells us what happens if you go down that sorry route.
In the HDM interview with MD Nick Thompson today he said Wages would go up to around £25-35m next season,which isn't that far off the OP's figure of £40,and is similar to what a lot of the recent promoted teams to the Prem(QPR apart I'd imagine)have spent in their first seasons in the top flight. If we stay up,expect that figure to rise to maybe £40m.As long as our future financial well being isn't jeopardised of course.
The comments of Nick Thomson are very reassuring. Controlled and targeted spend. Limits set and agreed by all parties before any transfers. Lessons learnt and a balanced business plan. This is Hull City but not as we know it.
The extra money is passed to the players. A few clubs keep the money and go back down. Some established clubs decide that they have been spending too much money and try to cut back. In a couple of seasons they get relegated. I think it's possible to spend all the money and ensure that contracts take into account relegation. I think that the purchase of Jimmy Bullard was the kind of money that needs to be spent. Obviously, Jimmy Bullard was the bad choice for various reasons but I don't think anybody was critical of the choice until his injuries and his personal life was publicised.
Sorry Peter, but your numbers are all wrong. In their last filed accounts(2011-12) Wigan's turn-over was £50.5m, their wage bill was £39.9m, they made a trading loss of £7.2m, taking their cumulative losses to £72.2m. I think it's fairly obvious that Assem plans to keep the purse strings very tight. Very tight. We can't even manage to sign the players who want to join us or want to stay with us at the moment. I think those purse strings might relax a bit when Assem realises that quality players won't accept what we're offering, I hope it happens sooner rather than later.
The issue is you forget about the other costs involved with the Premier League such as agents costs etc... So obviously this is a very simplistic method. I wouldn't be surprised if we spent 5M, the key to that is though to spend that on one or two players of true quality, but these players need to be players that have sell on value. Chester and Elmo have that so clearly we should spend more on them than a 30 year old who is a good player, probably better than them but someone who wewould not be able to sell.
it would seem really odd to me for the Allam's to take a massively risky gamble, have it come in to then not continue with a positive optimistic attitude towards additions to the squad. i'm not advocating recklessness, just calculated risk. i'd have thought anyone willing to stick £50mill on an outsider would then chuck a decent amount of the winnings to carry on their success and my entertainment. it's easy to say when it's not my money and I'm confident that the Allam's have faith in Mr Bruce, who after all has already proven himself to be a worthy beneficiary.
Also, remember all of the non playing costs Wages - background personnel - stewards - club shop - marketing people - coaches, physios, managers etc Travel costs Marketing costs etc Utilities Printing costs plus many more
why not do a West Brom and be a yoyo club between PL and Championship? saving the parachute payments up till we can slowly become established in the Promised Land.
What's wrong? I said £40m wages the accounts say £39.9m. For 2013-2014 I said turnover would be £80m compared to £50m in 2011-2012 because there has been a big increase in TV revenue. It might not be £80m but I was only talking round figures for ease of understanding. I realise there are other costs but they are insignificant compared to salaries and transfer fees. I don't get this concept of yo-yo club. For every one West Brom there's 10 clubs that come down and never look like going up again. It's all very well bragging about not going crazy and therefore signing players on £20k a week but if it means losing every week and relegation I don't think it's good economics.
What you actually said was that Wigan have just gone down with an income of £80m and wages of £40m, which was what I was pointing out wasn't correct. When a club quotes it's wage bill, it's not for the 25 first team players, it's for the entire business, so in City's case it's spread across more than 100 staff. I don't expect us to sign any £5m players, nor do I expect us to pay much more than £20k a week for players. In fact, I get the impression that we're not even offering that for most players at the moment, though I suspect that will change when it becomes clear exactly what sort of player that will get you at the moment.
Survival is possible on a lower wage bill (Blackpool almost managed it on a wage bill of £14m three years ago!) and perhaps there's a different balance to be struck between transfer fees and wage bill, but the latter is the most reliable predictor of performance. Hull City have done it before (08-09) when you survived with a £34M wage bill. The four smallest Premiership wage bills in the last 5 seasons were all relegated (Blackpool, Burnley,Derby & Birmingham). The smallest wage bill to survive over the past five years is Stoke City's 08-09's £29m, closely followed by Wolves's £30 the following season. Stoke's season that year is particularly remarkable, since they survived very comfortably by 11 points (and Premier League points cost, on average, £1.37m). I think Palace are much more vulnerable than Hull as their current wage bill is under £10M (when you consider the fact that Leicester's is close to £30M it was quite an achievement by them this season) - writing that hurt btw
What I said was: “I looked at the HDM and somebody was saying that Wigan - who went down - had an income of about £80m and wages of £40m.” I accept that was the past tense but I would think it would mean 2012-2013 rather than 2011-2012. The point I was making referred to what would happen in 2013-2014. I would think the vast majority of non-playing staff are on very low wages. My overall point is that unless City wake up they will waste the opportunity presented to them. I don’t want us to get in a financial mess again. We can avoid that by ensuring that we don’t have to pay high wages if we return to the Championship. We have to compete in the Premier League though and shouldn’t try to do it with Championship quality players.
The Blackpool situation is too much of a risk. Hull City stayed up but only because of our fantastic start. After that we were dire.
I think the overall point I'm trying to make is that we should accept the reality of what is needed if we have to survive in the Premier League. If the Allams said: "We are not going to be spending any extra (or very little) I wouldn't argue with them. It is their money and their risk.
When you start to decompose the '£120m', from a cash flow perspective you'll 'only' see £63m of it this year (assuming you finish 17th). You already received c£10M TV/prize money in the Championship, so really it's an incremental £55m you have to play with - Not sure what your owners plans or how much debt you are carrying into the Prem, but if that £55M is invested in the squad it should give you more than a fighting chance
That's why I was talking about £80m turnover in 2013-2014. Are you sure we got £10m TV/prize money in the Championship? Our turnover has only been a little over that in total recently.
No, not sure at all - basing that on the fact that Palace fans think they received c£8M. Might be slightly less this year due to the fact that none of last seasons relegated teams regained promotion (like West Ham did last season) so there were no parachute payments shared out!
