Rumour - Thomas-Asante

[Hound]

Of course we will.

With the lowest wage budget in the Championship - approximately £20m lower than the big boys?

There are only 5 teams in the Championship with a wage bill over £16m this season. 4 have parachute payments, the other is us. If the bulk of the league can operate on an annual wage bill of £8-14m, there's no reason why we can't.

Where did you get that FDTW? Sure I saw something on Swiss ramble recently that suggested it’d be the lowest in the div, and the majority were about 20-25m

I did think that sounded a little high tbf and may have misread the piece

[From Despair To Where?]

With the lowest wage budget in the Championship - approximately £20m lower than the big boys?

There are only 5 teams in the Championship with a wage bill over £16m this season. 4 have parachute payments, the other is us. If the bulk of the league can operate on an annual wage bill of £8-14m, there's no reason why we can't.

Where did you get that FDTW? Sure I saw something on Swiss ramble recently that suggested it’d be the lowest in the div, and the majority were about 20-25m

I did think that sounded a little high tbf and may have misread the piece

https://salarysport.com/football/

This is their blurb on how they collate the data

About us
We strive to collate and maintain over 50,000 salaries from the worlds 7 largest sports, spanning the past 10 years. Our team trawls the internet for reliable sources on a daily basis to save you, our readers, the time! Spawned out of a University economics paper on the state of modern football wages, our founders were inspired to make the information they researched publically available and have maintained the database ever since.

Please note we only accept salaries from:

- Team/player press releases

- Confirmed by widely circulate articles from top tier publications

- Industry experts & team insiders

- Accurately and reliably sourced encyclopedias & databases

I was discussing this in another thread. (Can't remember which one, either Rivals or Financial thread on GF) I'm not saying it's 100% accurate but they are usually in the ballpark and more reliable than most sources I've seen and it's certainly more reliable than most of the idle guesswork on here. Theres nothing on there that makes me think "Thats way out".My one proviso I that they seem to imply we are paying the whole of Drinkwater's and Rahman's wages.

[Snowflake Royal]

Surely the best info to go on is the most recent published accounts of every club, which will be for 2020/2021 and should show their wage bills? Rather than any site that is talking about unpublished wages or trying to say what individual players earn.

Given Championship income is about £12m - £16m, excluding parachute payments, if £16m is going to be the lowest wage bill next season, then virtually every Championship club deserves to fold.

Let's face it, our wage bill should be £10m - £12m max.

[From Despair To Where?]

That's what they try to do, get information from official or reliable sources. I've looked into wages a lot over the past 3 years and they are the one site that consistently square up with what we know. I think its a decent starting reference point for any debate on wages.

You're right though, we should realistically be looking at a wagebill in the region of £10-12m a year to be sustainable.

[Hound]

Just googled and looked back through at the Swiss ramble thread from April last year

From the last 3 years which I think is the latest published accounts from each team, only Rotherham on 8m was less than 16m

The next was Hull on 18m. All but 5 of the teams had 20m or above

Can’t seem to link it but it’s a simple search

[From Despair To Where?]

The information he was quoting is from accounts posted 2 years ago. I can believe those figures were accurate at the time but those figures are pre Covid and the financial landscape has changed immeasurably since then.

From a figure of £33m quoted by Swiss Ramble for 2020, we alone have shifted Barrow, Mannone, Popa, Gunter, McLeary, Obita, Blackett, Aluko and Baldock, players all allegedly on £15k+ a week. So a figure of £22m for this season is perfectly possible. In that time, we've brought in Laurent, Halilovic, Hoillet and Danns, all for less than what Baldock was on.

[Hound]

Oh yeah, for us it’s definitely dropped way off. Weren’t we capped to 21m this season? Suspect we’ll be about that but that’s mainly due to picking up a lot of freebies and loans on small money

[From Despair To Where?]

The Salary Sport site reckons we're on a shade over £21m but that includes Rafael and Puscas. Ince was apparently on £3k a week less at Stoke than Moore is on here.

I think the stort is pretty similar everywhere in the Football League, we just obviously had less wiggle room with FFP.

Anyway, this is probably a discussion for a different thread.

[Stranded]

The Salary Sport site reckons we're on a shade over £21m but that includes Rafael and Puscas. Ince was apparently on £3k a week less at Stoke than Moore is on here.

I think the stort is pretty similar everywhere in the Football League, we just obviously had less wiggle room with FFP.

Anyway, this is probably a discussion for a different thread.

I think we are paying Moore and Stoke are paying Ince, so no saving there.

Agreed budget for this year was 21.4m I believe, and with Puscas and Rafael off the books since Jan, we should be comfortably under that.

16m next, in a post Covid world will probably be around mid-table and frankly if we struggle to get a competitive team out when we can pay on average 10-12k pw, then we'll deserve all we get (assuming we stay up). One massive plus for us, is we have one of the best training facilities in the division, that may well persuade some players to join us for a little less than they get elsewhere.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

Just out of curiosity with an agreed business plan did Birmingham have to suffer from the same fate as ourselves or not? I remember them having a ridiculously high wage bill for the league as well but I don't remember them ever having to get it down.

We should still have enough to have a competitive team next season for sure really. I think losing the likes of Swift will be a big loss but if we can manage to get ourselves a squad that is more balanced then that should see us through as we have more quality than a fair amount of clubs in this league as it is anyway.

Given the low wages, I'd like to think we could keep both Holmes and Rino on beyond this season, hopefully Laurent as well. I wouldn't be too concerned at losing Laurent because he will probably want more than he's on now anyway and might get an offer elsewhere. It would be a shame to lose him as he's a good player though, but he can be replaced.

[Snowflake Royal]

Oh yeah, for us it’s definitely dropped way off. Weren’t we capped to 21m this season? Suspect we’ll be about that but that’s mainly due to picking up a lot of freebies and loans on small money

Believe the last accounts, not for last season, still showed us over £30m despite people saying every summer fir the last 5 years we've knock a big chunk of the wage bill this time. And that includes a year where big earners went.

This season do think the deal was low 20s to comply with the FL.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

Oh yeah, for us it’s definitely dropped way off. Weren’t we capped to 21m this season? Suspect we’ll be about that but that’s mainly due to picking up a lot of freebies and loans on small money

Believe the last accounts, not for last season, still showed us over £30m despite people saying every summer fir the last 5 years we've knock a big chunk of the wage bill this time. And that includes a year where big earners went.

This season do think the deal was low 20s to comply with the FL.

In which case you'd still have to knock off Baldock's, Aluko's, Rafael's and Puscas's wages just to name some who likely take up £75k a week of our wage bill.

[From Despair To Where?]

The thing is, going back 2 years, Moore's on £30,000 a week so even then, that's only £1.5m of a £33m wagebill. The problem isn't even the big, big earners (assuming they're performing at an acceptable level) it's the number of average squad players on £15,000 a week who are only ever going to get 15-20 games a season that kills us. Mannone played 6 games in two years. He earned £500,000 per appearance.

[Snowflake Royal]

Oh yeah, for us it’s definitely dropped way off. Weren’t we capped to 21m this season? Suspect we’ll be about that but that’s mainly due to picking up a lot of freebies and loans on small money

Believe the last accounts, not for last season, still showed us over £30m despite people saying every summer fir the last 5 years we've knock a big chunk of the wage bill this time. And that includes a year where big earners went.

This season do think the deal was low 20s to comply with the FL.

In which case you'd still have to knock off Baldock's, Aluko's, Rafael's and Puscas's wages just to name some who likely take up £75k a week of our wage bill.

But that's only about £4m over the year and we needed to take off about £10m.

This is the thing. Every year we have x y and z have gone that takes loads off the wage bill. But we replace them (hopefully cheaper) and it never has a big effect.

Iirc, in the 5/6 years to 2020 we've consistently had a wage bill in the low to mid £30 millions. If we've not managed to reduce it by a lot shifting the likes of Pog, Drenthe, McCleary, Gunter, Mannone, Bacuna, Barrow, Ilori, Blackett, Obita, McShane etc etc.

How are we going to have taken £10m off the bill by losing Cabral, Aluko, Baldock, half of Puscas etc. In one season?

£5m from Puscas, Moore, Swift is to target.. but the first two there's no guarantee they go at all anyway.

Anyway, I'll shut up because this has gotten ridiculously off topic now.

[Horsham Royal]

The weekly figures quoted are presumably what people think ends up in the players account.
i.e. Not including ~13% extra for NI.
So a cap of 21M really equates to ~18.5M, right?

[Stranded]

The weekly figures quoted are presumably what people think ends up in the players account.
i.e. Not including ~13% extra for NI.
So a cap of 21M really equates to ~18.5M, right?

The cap is the squad cost - so the club can spend 21m gross on players. How much of that actually ends up in the players account, I couldn't care less.

As for quoted player wages, I always take that as being the gross salary, so Player X is on 25k pw but his take home is markedly less. The same way you or I may say, I earn 50k per year. You talk about the gross amount, not what you actually take home.

That's also why you sometimes hear that one of the top players will earn 300k after tax.

[Horsham Royal]

The weekly figures quoted are presumably what people think ends up in the players account.
i.e. Not including ~13% extra for NI.
So a cap of 21M really equates to ~18.5M, right?

The cap is the squad cost - so the club can spend 21m gross on players. How much of that actually ends up in the players account, I couldn't care less.

As for quoted player wages, I always take that as being the gross salary, so Player X is on 25k pw but his take home is markedly less. The same way you or I may say, I earn 50k per year. You talk about the gross amount, not what you actually take home.

That's also why you sometimes hear that one of the top players will earn 300k after tax.

When I say I earn £x gross or when I see a job ad for a salary of £y, it certainly does not include employer's NI.
So to say a player is on 15K means a cost to RFC of nearer 17K.
Employer's NI is surely included in "squad cost", no?

[Stranded]

The weekly figures quoted are presumably what people think ends up in the players account.
i.e. Not including ~13% extra for NI.
So a cap of 21M really equates to ~18.5M, right?

The cap is the squad cost - so the club can spend 21m gross on players. How much of that actually ends up in the players account, I couldn't care less.

As for quoted player wages, I always take that as being the gross salary, so Player X is on 25k pw but his take home is markedly less. The same way you or I may say, I earn 50k per year. You talk about the gross amount, not what you actually take home.

That's also why you sometimes hear that one of the top players will earn 300k after tax.

When I say I earn £x gross or when I see a job ad for a salary of £y, it certainly does not include employer's NI.
So to say a player is on 15K means a cost to RFC of nearer 17K.
Employer's NI is surely included in "squad cost", no?

Ah Ok, it didn't read like you meant Employers NI so apologies.

Looking at the agreed decision - the "Total Player Salary Costs" for this season is 21.1m dropping to 16m next. This is deemed to be the total of all player salaries.

The definition of salary in the decision is:

“Salary” means such sums as are required to be disclosed in or annexed to the standard player
contract (including but not limited to (i) gross basic salary, (ii) signing on fees, (iii) appearance
fees, (iv) individual player bonuses, and (v) accommodation, relocation, travel or motor costs)
excluding any payments made in accordance with the squad bonus schedule.

Whether this includes Employer NI is open to question but one would suggest it is likely.

However, it also states that where salary is concerned we cannot offer a deal over the agreed wage limit set by the EFL when we entered into this agreement. So it would appear that we cannot offer more than 8.5k pw to any signing made before the end of next season.

We currently have 16 squad places up for grabs next year, assuming no further sales. If each of those were offered 8.5k, then that would equate to approx 7m of salary - not including bonuses etc. So would leave us with 9m to cover those and the current deals we have in place.

Contracts can be extended but for players earning under 8.5k, we can only increase to that. If they earn over, we can only offer them the same terms - and only with EFL approval.

[Horsham Royal]

Thanks Stranded.

It's vague isn't it? Having looked at the agreement, I'm more inclined to think employer's is not included in the 21M (though as a more or less fixed cost may have been taken into account when setting the cap).

"Excluding any payments made in accordance with the squad bonus schedule" is odd.

[SCIAG]

Of course we will.

With the lowest wage budget in the Championship - approximately £20m lower than the big boys?

I wonder how clubs' budgets compared when the 106 squad was assembled.

Not much good data from back then, but we had a few high earners - Sidwell and Lita will both have been on a pretty penny (although not much by modern standards), and a few others won't have been far behind. We would definitely have been in the top half and probably the top six.

Some players were very cheap, notably Harper who didn't have an agent and was playing for less than many fans would have been earning.

There tends to be a pretty strong correlation between wage bill and performance. Unfortunately in the last few years we've mostly been proving that correlation doesn't guarantee causation...