RFC's wage structure

[Crowthorne Royal]

Does anyone actually know what our wage structure is ?
My wife works for Spurs (Sunday will be tense) and at the Xmas party I spoke to Danny Murphy and I was waxing lyrical about how well we were playing and noticed he wasn't playing much for Spurs. I then asked him if he fancied a move South West, to which he replied ; 'You wont get top class players at Reading until you change your wage structure'. It is reported that we have offered Sidwell £25K a week which Hammond calls 'a very strong offer' or similar. This would suggest this is the max. I would imagine players like Murphy must be on around £40K ? In light of this should we change our wage structure ? Should we say to Sidwell for example 'We'll pay you £25K a week but if we finish in Europe, Win the FA Cup or similar you'll get the equivalent of £35K a week ?
To really progress and not 'do a Wigan' next year we will have to think like an established Prem club, the wage structure may well be a key part of that process. Thoughts ??

[Biscuit]

So Danny Murphy considers himself a top class player does he, and worthy of £40,000 a week? I think I'd rather continue with the young, hungry players who are delighted to have the chance to test themselves in the Premier League, and are not only thinking about where they can pick up the fattest pay cheque.

[el_presidente]

I would rather have the current squad on our current wage structure than pay the likes of Danny Murphy 40k per week.

[Stranded]

All depends on your point of view. Yes to attract players who are at their peak (or on the wrong side of it) you are going to half to pay a hell of a lot more than we seem to do.

Our policy however, is to find players on their way up who are good already and will only get better over the course of their career at Reading. These are the players that we will not have problems attracting.

I should also point out that the views of Mr Murphy on this are tainted simply by the fact that one of the reasons he apparently left Charlton was because his missus wanted to get invited to more film premieres and Charlton players didn't get invites.

[TWRoyal]

I reckon we're doing alright as we are.

[Lieutenant Pigeon]

Can we get away from quoting wages 'per week' and quote them annually instead - £25K per week is over £1¼M per year - put things into perspective!!!!


C.

[londinium]

I would rather pick my eyes out with fish hooks than pay Danny Murphy £40 a week!!!

[Doyler]

Not point in changing the wage structure, if it ain't broke don't fix it. The last thing I would want is for us to mortgage the club for some overpaid egos that are more interested in their pay packet than what they do on the pitch. As for Danny Murphy, if Spurs are paying him £40,000 a week then they need to have a rethink, he is average now. Meanwhile Murphy is laughing all the way to the bank.

[Hahnemann's Hairdresser]

I would rather pick my eyes out with fish hooks than pay Danny Murphy £40 a week!!!

Our wage structure isn't that bad is it?!

Keep the wage strucure as it is, lessons must be learn't from the likes of Bradford and Leeds. When the club is ready to accomodate players on £40k a week it will.

[Huntley & Palmer]

We will never attract the sort of player that would command such a wage, basically because we would never pay it. Reading will simply be a stepping stone for players to move onto bigger clubs if they prove their worth with us

[Gordons Cumming]

Murphy is spot on.

[Fred Sharpe's Nose]

Murphy is spot on.

Murphy might be spot on, in his view of the world, but the unanimous verdict on this thread is that we don't want that kind of player.

Next, someone will meet Nigel Quashie, who'll say "You'll never be a top club until you pay £20m+ for players."

Then someone will meet Jermaine Pennant, who'll say "You'll never be a top club until you have a mega-billionaire multinational corporate owner."

Then someone will meet Andy Johnson, who'll say "You'll never be a top club until you have a 50,000 seater stadium".

The opinions of these people are worthless.

[Hoop Blah]

We will never attract the sort of player that would command such a wage, basically because we would never pay it. Reading will simply be a stepping stone for players to move onto bigger clubs if they prove their worth with us

Exactly, we have to opperate in the market we are because we can't attract more established players.

There will come a time when we have to up our wages so that we can keep hold of players a little longer, like Sidwell maybe, but the fact that we've got the remaining players all signed up on new contracts must mean we're doing ok at the moment.

[RG30]

There is only so far you can go with these kind of players.

Think back 1 and 1/2 years, Steve Coppell told John Madejski this and we ended up spending £1million on a player for the 1st time in the club's history. That was a big decision, and it showed the club's ambition. Slowly the wage structure will have to rise and rise if we're contiuning the rate of progress that many of us hope for (although I'll take 17th place next season).

And FWIW Danny Murphy would be a welcome addition to the Reading squad.

[brendywendy]

oxf*rd off, i would be a tad pissed off if we signed murphy
not a reading type player at all.wouldnt want him.

and yes our wage strructure is changing already, now a top bracket of 25 K(was about 15K last year)
will rise next season too, maybe 30K
well ba able to afford murphy by....2009?

[Gordons Cumming]

Murphy is spot on.

Murphy might be spot on, in his view of the world, but the unanimous verdict on this thread is that we don't want that kind of player.

Next, someone will meet Nigel Quashie, who'll say "You'll never be a top club until you pay £20m+ for players."

Then someone will meet Jermaine Pennant, who'll say "You'll never be a top club until you have a mega-billionaire multinational corporate owner."

Then someone will meet Andy Johnson, who'll say "You'll never be a top club until you have a 50,000 seater stadium".

The opinions of these people are worthless.

Agreed, in Murphy's Law it's spot on.

[Behindu]

I'd argue it's probably us who have our wage structure right and most other clubs who have it wrong.

We pay what we can afford (maybe a bit more than we can afford), but we won't go bust. Football fans everywhere moan that it is too expensive to watch games and then threads like this suggest we should pay already hugely overpaid players a lot more !

We will always attract decent players, and with our manager we will get the maximum out of them. I would suggest we can quite happily pay lower money then the likes of Boro, Everton et al and still compete.

Those advocating that we increase our wage bill by several million a year presumably have the budget worked out that allows us to afford it long term ?

[scutterbucket]

Obviously the wage structure is working fine for us at the moment but if we are still in the Premiership in 2 or 3 years time will this still be the case?

Once Reading increase the capacity and establish themselves as a long term Premiership team I think having a wage cap that is significantly lower than the rest of the league could be a huge problem for us. Players won't want to come and those players that are already with us will always be looking to improve their wage packets, we all know we're most probably going to be losing one of our best players at the end of this season.

I'm not saying we should start thinking about spending with the big boy's but when will there be a time when we start looking at paying wages and looking at players somewhere in line with where with the Portsmouths and Boltons of this league? We're getting the similar gates and the same TV revenue so when will the time come when the fans start to think the club should be forking out more?

[Behindu]

I think that the wages elsewhere are more likely to start to drop to our level.

Pompey can only pay more becasue their owner funds them and it won't last for ever. Fulham are the same.

We need to have a model that works for us and our total wage bill has to be what we can afford. How Coppell juggles that would be up to him (cut the squad by a couple and pay everyone a bit more, do a Bolton and spend money on wages not transfer fees, push homegrown players in to bolster the squad, gamble on finding lower league players....)

[kevan]

No mystery here

Market demand will determine wages of top players, at an individual level people will move for the best deal for themselves and their families - desperate or wealthy clubs will bid up the cost of specific players. There is little point changing your whole structure to accommodate these individuals when you are already competitive.

Reading will try to act like a business and keep wage bill affordable - but as revenue is going up massively with TV and (later) new stadium, affordability will increase - expect average wages to move in accordance with this and no faster (unless we get a deep pockets investor).

We can punch above our weight with good team spirit and good selection and development of young up and coming players.

This happening right now and will continue. I for one am pretty happy with it.