Player Wages

[Google Bot 3,278]

4 minutes ago, Badger said:

However, the £15,000 figure he quotes for his championship wages seems pretty unlikely.

Not when you consider that media reported up to 50% wage cuts for players relegated. Add into that Emi being very unhappy start of season, pretty sure if if he was earning 30k+/week he wouldn't have been as sulky.

IOW we 'perhaps' took the **** big time.  Yes, he was part of that relegation - but when you consider the stats he was pulling in the prem league and his importance on the field - it's quite a different story.

Edited April 12, 2022 by Google Bot

[paddycanary 539]

2 hours ago, Badger said:

We get a lot of "very informed" people stating as a matter of fact that we pay very low wages - without any reference to the accounts! 

Kieran Maguire (The Price of Football) has just tweeted the following breakdown of wages in the Championship last season. Last year in the Championship, out average wage was £31,000 - obviously some will be on significantly more. This was the second highest in the Championship, after Watford who were a few hundred more.

It is reasonable to assume that this will have risen very significantly this season and the average will be over £40,000 per week, despite the ridiculous £20,000 pw ceiling that some quoted. Just thought I'd bring a fact to the debate. Again, this will be an average figure and some will be on a lot more than this.

What strikes me from those figures is how decent mid-Champo players are pulling in £15,000 a week. Nice work if you can get it. I didn't even have enough money to buy a sandwich today. (pay-day on Thursday thankfully!)

[shefcanary 2,410]

22 minutes ago, Badger said:

I welcome scepticism about figures Hertford because a lot of what people say is nonsense but Maguire is the acknowledged expert in the field of football finance. He has sufficient credibility to be quoted in the FT, The Times, the BBC and most national and local newspapers.

He was also called to give evidence to the House of Commons to give oral evidence to MPs of the Digital, Cultural, Media and Sports Committee. He was described by the MPs of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Football Supporters as a "football finance expert."

He is an academic not a journalist and has a book examining football finance - "The Price of Football." His academic reputation is sufficient for him to be invited to lecture at other universities. It would be very damaging to his reputation to be found to be talking nonsense. If you were going to trust any individual on football finance, I think he would have to be close to the top of your list.

 

https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/1318/html/

https://www.ft.com/content/9c665caa-23ee-4255-9e8c-09b82cacd5fc

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/crisis-deepens-for-everton-as-they-face-biggest-financial-losses-in-english-football-w7p9r2hdp

https://www.westminster.ac.uk/events/the-football-business-current-issues-in-finance-transfers-and-contracts

@Badger, I've known a few academics specialising in niche subject areas and who have supposed good reputations, in my time as being a trustee on a large member organisation which was responsible for conferences etc.  In my view, because many of these academics have never actually worked in the industry they specialise in, they make big assumptions which although headline grabbing do not reveal anywhere near the truth.  In most areas they are operating in it is precisely because there is such a lack of transparency that drives their credibility up, but boy they are usually well out!  They are useful to those of us trying to keep things a little fuzzy, because they do grab all the headlines and thus take the heat away from us trying to get on with our jobs.   

FWIW, the bonus paid for promotion last year was iro £20m, not £10m; as others have said the base salary paid at Norwich is on the low side, but if there is success then the bonuses put you on a par with the best of the division, if not on a par with the players in the division above.  Basically as a yo-yo club, if you look at individual players total remuneration, over the past four seasons (including the current one), with the bonuses I'd say very few players actually experienced a significant variation in this despite the clauses in most contracts supposedly halving salaries on relegation.  This is because of the immediate promotion, the bonuses effectively make up for the salary lost.  You can see this in the relatively stable salary costs in the accounts. 

So my point after all this.  Well £30K a week doesn't sound too far out in the championship, but that includes the bonuses paid, and anyone with a limited knowledge could come up with a figure like that directly from the accounts.  However whether there are significant variations by player I've no idea; I would imagine only a very few, very senior pro's (Pukki, Krul, Buendia etc), are paid significantly higher whereas most (including dare I say it, Cantwell) are paid a relatively respectable remuneration, otherwise there would be a huge problem with over-inflated ego's knocking team cohesion. Finally, when people question where the EPL money has gone, I hope all this analysis proves once and for all, it has gone where it always goes and that is mainly to the players, their agents and one or two directors.

Edited April 12, 2022 by shefcanary

[Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man 3,821]

49 minutes ago, Google Bot said:

While I agree with your sentiment, the reason is because it's based on the terms of the contract agreed, which in turn is based on the financial budget of the club.  I think his last signature was in the prem league?  So must've been on around 7-8k before that.   And then a relegation clause written in to his final contract(?).

You can only presume he wanted out at the start of last season than agreeing to a revision/extension of contract.  From the clubs perspective they've gone 8k,15k to 35k in a period of 3 years - So, Maybe they saw that as generous?

Buendia's final contract was signed in the summer of 2019, when we gave new, long-term deals to most of the squad. Buendia was already one of our star players at the time, so he would surely have been one of the highest earners in the 2019/20 season. No doubt that would've contained a relegation wage drop, but so would everyone else's. That's why I find it hard to believe that Buendia's wage was half of the squad average. 

I also find it hard to believe the average was £31k last season. Gibson was believed to be one of our highest, if not the highest, earner on £40-45k a week. Pukki was probably on similar. Then the likes of Bali Mumba, Michael McGovern, Adam Idah, Josh Murphy, Andrew Omobamidele and any other younger fringe players would be on a few grand. I can't see how the average could've been £31k.

[Chelm Canary 404]

2 hours ago, dylanisabaddog said:

When he signed for us the Millwall manager said they had offered him £8k a week to stay but Norwich offered double that

I read in an interview with him that he didn't want to sign for Norwich so he made silly demands which he was shocked we agreed to, so this sounds about right. 

[hertfordyellow 460]

1 hour ago, Badger said:

I welcome scepticism about figures Hertford because a lot of what people say is nonsense but Maguire is the acknowledged expert in the field of football finance. He has sufficient credibility to be quoted in the FT, The Times, the BBC and most national and local newspapers.

He was also called to give evidence to the House of Commons to give oral evidence to MPs of the Digital, Cultural, Media and Sports Committee. He was described by the MPs of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Football Supporters as a "football finance expert."

He is an academic not a journalist and has a book examining football finance - "The Price of Football." His academic reputation is sufficient for him to be invited to lecture at other universities. It would be very damaging to his reputation to be found to be talking nonsense. If you were going to trust any individual on football finance, I think he would have to be close to the top of your list.

 

https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/1318/html/

https://www.ft.com/content/9c665caa-23ee-4255-9e8c-09b82cacd5fc

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/crisis-deepens-for-everton-as-they-face-biggest-financial-losses-in-english-football-w7p9r2hdp

https://www.westminster.ac.uk/events/the-football-business-current-issues-in-finance-transfers-and-contracts

Did he link to his data or the model for formulating the data? He needs to do this for credibility. I don’t really mind how many articles a journalist has used his quotes in, this is imperative in academia otherwise it’s not trustworthy.

[Badger 2,406]

1 hour ago, shefcanary said:

FWIW, the bonus paid for promotion last year was iro £20m, not £10m

Where did you hear that Shef? I haven't seen it in the accounts.

[Badger 2,406]

14 minutes ago, hertfordyellow said:

I don’t really mind how many articles a journalist has used his quotes in, this is imperative in academia otherwise it’s not trustworthy.

As I said he has been asked to contribute to Parliamentary investigations as well and widely-considered to be a football finance expert. If he is not considered to be reasonably reliable, I can't think of many who could claim to be. However, I support your tendency towards scepticism.

You probably won't be interested but his Wiki page gives critical reaction to his book, "The Price of Football."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kieran_Maguire

Edited April 12, 2022 by Badger
Added last sentence

[hertfordyellow 460]

16 minutes ago, Badger said:

As I said he has been asked to contribute to Parliamentary investigations as well and widely-considered to be a football finance expert. If he is not considered to be reasonably reliable, I can't think of many who could claim to be. However, I support your tendency towards scepticism.

You probably won't be interested but his Wiki page gives critical reaction to his book, "The Price of Football."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kieran_Maguire

They ask a wide range of people to contribute to parliamentary reviews. I’m sure he has dedicated much time to the subject and knows a lot. That said if he is as good as you said then he would want to show his analysis rather than just send a graph. If the graph is from a study that has the data methodology then I’m happy to change my mind. But as others have said, clubs are not publishing this data, nor anything remotely usable. If he is getting this data from clubs independently I’m not entirely sure why they would, nor how conveniently all of them have been happy to supply the data. There are no Blanks in his data. 
 

I would think the clubs would find this data unhelpful to them. Every player in the first team below that average figure will be wondering who on earth is on double their wages and will instantly ask for a new contract. I’m not sure they will hand it out even to an academic. So that leaves the total wage costs approach, which is troubling.

[Son Ova Gunn 165]

2 hours ago, Badger said:

Truth is we don't know what individuals are on: we know the total wages and are able to make an approximate but pretty reliable calculation of average wage but we know nothing about individual wage amounts.

Let take this as correct (and as previously stated, unless we know what’s in staff costs (ie NI or even how many staff there is) I do not think it gives an accurate average). The ‘average’ staff costs tells us virtually nothing to decide if our wage structure is sufficient to retain or attract players for the top flight.

let me give an example. The NHS has a staff cost of £56billion. It employs 1.2m people (note the number of employees is needed for proper average!) so therefore the average wage for an NHS worker is £46.5k per year. How does this figure help establish whether the NHS can attract and retain high level surgeons? 

[Badger 2,406]

8 minutes ago, hertfordyellow said:

But as others have said, clubs are not publishing this data, nor anything remotely usable. If he is getting this data from clubs independently I’m not entirely sure why they would, nor how conveniently all of them have been happy to supply the data. There are no Blanks in his data. 
 

I would think the clubs would find this data unhelpful to them. Every player in the first team below that average figure will be wondering who on earth is on double their wages and will instantly ask for a new contract. I’m not sure they will hand it out even to an academic. So that leaves the total wage costs approach, which is troubling.

There is no way that he will have contact individual clubs. He will have taken the data from the accounts and done an analysis from this as is the normal process when examining a companies accounts for commercial reasons. It is quite a standard procedure when examining a companies accounts to compare wage costs to turnover for similar businesses and to see if you can find any obvious discrepancies. When I was working in business + the public sector we would examine our costs against benchmark data that would have been acquired in a similar way (i.e. through statutory accounts; public information) to consider whether staff costs were appropriate + other things as well.

He reviews all clubs accounts on twitter as they are published so he won't publish his methodology every time, but I would imagine it is pretty simple - something like wage costs with a percentage deducted for non-playing staff/ management cost/ etc  and divided by squad size. This methodology would be highly reliable and pretty valid as far as I can see.

It won't be exact but gives a good approximation and ratio analysis is a pretty standard practice in other industries and something I use when considering shares to buy.

Obviously you don't like the idea which is fair enough but I prefer this to to the gossip and journalistic b******* that others rely upon as it is at least based upon statutory accounts so has a basis in fact.

[Badger 2,406]

4 minutes ago, Son Ova Gunn said:

The ‘average’ staff costs tells us virtually nothing to decide if our wage structure is sufficient to retain or attract players for the top flight.

let me give an example. The NHS has a staff cost of £56billion. It employs 1.2m people (note the number of employees is needed for proper average!) so therefore the average wage for an NHS worker is £46.5k per year. How does this figure help establish whether the NHS can attract and retain high level surgeons? 

The average wage tells us nothing about the wage structure - how high the bands are + how many are in them It tells us an average, that's all. However, the total size of the wage bill and the average tells you far more than "virtually nothing:" it just not tell you everything you want to know.

You would not look at average staff cost to determine whether the wage structure is high enough to attract and retain high level surgeons - you would just look at whether you had as many high level surgeons as you need and how easy it was to fill vacancies. However, two supermarket companies comparing themselves to each other might well wish to look at ratio analysis. For example if Sainsbury compared themselves to Tesco and found that their staffing cost relative to turnover was higher than Tesco's they might wonder whether efficiency gains were possible. Similarly, if their average wage cost was higher than Tescos, they might wonder if they have too many people on managerial pay grades (assuming that managers get paid more).

[Son Ova Gunn 165]

4 minutes ago, Badger said:

 

You would not look at average staff cost to determine whether the wage structure is high enough to attract and retain high level surgeons - you would just look at whether you had as many high level surgeons as you need and how easy it was to fill vacancies. 

Excellent Badger, something we agree on (finally🤣). So moving the example back to football, given that we don’t have enough premier league level players and cannot fill the vacancies, can we finally agree that we don’t have the right pay structure in place for the next step of advancement? 👍

[Badger 2,406]

2 minutes ago, Son Ova Gunn said:

Excellent Badger, something we agree on (finally🤣). So moving the example back to football, given that we don’t have enough premier league level players and cannot fill the vacancies, can we finally agree that we don’t have the right pay structure in place for the next step of advancement? 👍

I don't think that it is to do with pay structure or amount for that matter. We certainly spent more than Sheff Utd when they stayed up and we didn't and I'm pretty sure that we will spend more than Brentford this year.

Players that a newly-promoted club are interested in will only go to them if a more established club is not interested in them, because they know that the odds are they will be relegated.

[shefcanary 2,410]

1 hour ago, Badger said:

Where did you hear that Shef? I haven't seen it in the accounts.

I saw it in a Bailey Athletic piece.  As others have said he seems to be closer to things at the Carra so don't doubt it.

[Son Ova Gunn 165]

10 minutes ago, Badger said:

I don't think that it is to do with pay structure or amount for that matter. We certainly spent more than Sheff Utd when they stayed up and we didn't and I'm pretty sure that we will spend more than Brentford this year.

Players that a newly-promoted club are interested in will only go to them if a more established club is not interested in them, because they know that the odds are they will be relegated.

I don’t think anyone claims a higher salary cap or bigger wage budget (2 different things of course) is a cast iron certainly of survival, certainly not me,  just that it improves the odds. Yes many players will go to established clubs if they have the option but maybe the pool of potential players widens from the German second division.

Edited April 12, 2022 by Son Ova Gunn

[hertfordyellow 460]

42 minutes ago, Badger said:

There is no way that he will have contact individual clubs. He will have taken the data from the accounts and done an analysis from this as is the normal process when examining a companies accounts for commercial reasons. It is quite a standard procedure when examining a companies accounts to compare wage costs to turnover for similar businesses and to see if you can find any obvious discrepancies. When I was working in business + the public sector we would examine our costs against benchmark data that would have been acquired in a similar way (i.e. through statutory accounts; public information) to consider whether staff costs were appropriate + other things as well.

He reviews all clubs accounts on twitter as they are published so he won't publish his methodology every time, but I would imagine it is pretty simple - something like wage costs with a percentage deducted for non-playing staff/ management cost/ etc  and divided by squad size. This methodology would be highly reliable and pretty valid as far as I can see.

It won't be exact but gives a good approximation and ratio analysis is a pretty standard practice in other industries and something I use when considering shares to buy.

Obviously you don't like the idea which is fair enough but I prefer this to to the gossip and journalistic b******* that others rely upon as it is at least based upon statutory accounts so has a basis in fact.

Well one of the problems with the approach is that players come and go during the season, so dividing total wage cost by number of players leave quite a lot of wiggle room. He would have to take this into account and do a tally of the players during that period. An example would be, if 1 month after the snapshot is taken, 5 youth players sign their first contract, adding 5 players to previously 30 players significantly affects the average. 

Another problem is, for this to be comparable, every club would have to define wages / personnel costs exactly the same. From my limited understanding of accounting, i'm not sure there is a rigid definition.

I'm not sure why you are happy to call this methodology highly reliable, I find it the opposite.

One thing he could do is take the % of wages to turnover figure, apply it to the turnover and then do the tally of players in and out of the club over the period, remove loaned players wages by a certain percentage. I think that might be better but still back of a cigarette packet maths. I know i'm sounding pedantic about this, but my grandfather was an academic statistician and instilled this cynical wariness of academics using statistics to their own means rather than questioning their methodology. 

[essex canary 496]

It would be helpful if Clubs were required to disclose the wage cost breakdown of their first team squad, footballers on loan at other clubs, other football staff and admin staff with an average per staff member for each plus the standard deviation for first team squad. Then we would have real information about financial management and effectiveness.

 

[shefcanary 2,410]

9 hours ago, essex canary said:

It would be helpful if Clubs were required to disclose the wage cost breakdown of their first team squad, footballers on loan at other clubs, other football staff and admin staff with an average per staff member for each plus the standard deviation for first team squad. Then we would have real information about financial management and effectiveness.

 

It would indeed, in company accounts and charity accounts there is a limited banding disclosure for senior management / Key management personnel.   For football clubs this allows us to hazard a reasonable guess at CEO / DoF / other directors salaries, but despite the whole raison d'etre of a football club being about the on field performance for some reason it never stretches to players or coaching staff who by definition must be key to the success of the company.  The main argument against such disclosure being that it would only drive player salaries higher and thus have the adverse impact that many asking for transparency have.  However would it?  Isn't there also a case by seeing how much is spunked up the wall on players salaries that the public might actually demand a re-calibration?  Probably not, but would be interesting to see.

[Badger 2,406]

15 hours ago, hertfordyellow said:

Well one of the problems with the approach is that players come and go during the season, so dividing total wage cost by number of players leave quite a lot of wiggle room. He would have to take this into account and do a tally of the players during that period. An example would be, if 1 month after the snapshot is taken, 5 youth players sign their first contract, adding 5 players to previously 30 players significantly affects the average. 

Another problem is, for this to be comparable, every club would have to define wages / personnel costs exactly the same. From my limited understanding of accounting, i'm not sure there is a rigid definition.

There are all sorts of flaws like this, but it still likely to give a pretty good approximation (or at the very least, the best available).

As I have said this type of ration analysis is widely used in business but as in any analysis you need to be aware of the limitations of the data as well as what it shows.

I'm not sure why you are happy to call this methodology highly reliable, I find it the opposite.

Sorry that is a technical thing. When using data you tend to distinguish between reliability and validity. Reliability is essentially using the same method in all cases; validity is using the right measure/ data. It is perfectly possible to have highly reliable data that is not valid. (See below)

One thing he could do is take the % of wages to turnover figure, apply it to the turnover and then do the tally of players in and out of the club over the period, remove loaned players wages by a certain percentage. I think that might be better but still back of a cigarette packet maths. I know i'm sounding pedantic about this, but my grandfather was an academic statistician and instilled this cynical wariness of academics using statistics to their own means rather than questioning their methodology. 

Your grandfather was entirely correct. Certainly when I was at University (many years ago), we were forced to examine the reliability and validity of data used when evaluating studies. In what I consider to be the nadir of my career, I worked for a while in local govt in a policy/ strategy area. When informing and evaluating policy it is actually incredibly hard to get the date you need: to get what an academic statistician like your grandfather would require as reliable and valid data is simply too expensive to be possible. Instead we would look at pre-existing data sets for the best "proxy" data to measure the need/ effectiveness etc. Sometimes you had to adjust the data based upon a series of assumptions - your grandfather would have hated it! And this is all before you get into the field of choosing data that suits you because it makes your actions seem successful etc.

 

[essex canary 496]

17 hours ago, hertfordyellow said:

Well one of the problems with the approach is that players come and go during the season, so dividing total wage cost by number of players leave quite a lot of wiggle room. He would have to take this into account and do a tally of the players during that period. An example would be, if 1 month after the snapshot is taken, 5 youth players sign their first contract, adding 5 players to previously 30 players significantly affects the average. 

Another problem is, for this to be comparable, every club would have to define wages / personnel costs exactly the same. From my limited understanding of accounting, i'm not sure there is a rigid definition.

 

In the context of the proposed FFP wages plus amortisation equation there will need to be a rigid definition to take account of situations such as Cantwell, Trybull and Rowe to quote 3 examples.

[Badger 2,406]

46 minutes ago, essex canary said:

In the context of the proposed FFP wages plus amortisation equation there will need to be a rigid definition to take account of situations such as Cantwell, Trybull and Rowe to quote 3 examples.

Yes, one hopes that EFL has learned its lessons. They didn't even have an explicit definition of amortisation which is one of the ways that Derby tried to game the system. Derby were "caught" in the end but things like this made it harder for the authorities and ultimately put Derby in a far worse mess than they needed to be (not to mention the HMRC and their suppliers).

[Badger 2,406]

56 minutes ago, essex canary said:

In the context of the proposed FFP wages plus amortisation equation there will need to be a rigid definition to take account of situations such as Cantwell, Trybull and Rowe to quote 3 examples.

With regards the proposed profit and sustainability rules, the table below shows the scale of the challenge - this is for wages only and does not include amortisation.