by Ian Royal »
21 May 2008 23:56
working class hero Royal Rother Royal With Cheese Just for the record, I'm firmly in the "Where has the money gone" camp. Even if we assembled a squad of 25 all on 25K per week the wage bill would be 32m per year. I would be stunned if our wage bill came anywhere near that figure.
You need to allow for National Insurance costs which I believe would be 12.8% in that year, so 32.5m would become £36m, if that figure were accurate, which I'm sure it's not.
However, were you aware that the accounts show the club having nearly 450 employees? Take out the playing and coaching squad that still leaves 400 staff; I have absolutely no clue what the average wage of those 400 people would be but it's a fair guess to assume that their combined cost (incl NI costs) would be in excess of £10m.
If you really believe that all those staff are full time you are deluding yourself. I would also suggest many will be much nearer to minimum wage than 20k per annum....
Even assuming that our wage bill for all staff is going to be over £20m. People also forget all of the running costs for clubs as well, Police, maintenance, etc etc etc, then of course there is the previous 10 years losses.
You can't just look at basic wages either, most of th eplayers will have bonuses tied into their contracts.... not that they'll have got a lot this season, but last season they'd have done pretty darn well!
Oh my God we may have taken in something close to £100m over two seasons with sponsorship, TV money, Merchandising and Gate money.
Well I can easily see us having spent £40m+ on wages £10m-£15m on transfer fees and signing on fees at least. Another £20m on facilities maintenance. That doesn't leave you far short of £100m when last years profit is taken into account along with something similar this season.
Players salaries virtually doubled if not more when we got promoted, they have gone up since then. I bet the players arn't taking a 50% reduction in wages after relegation.
People shouting "where's the money gone" might want to take a look at the accounts and have a little think first. It's not rocket science, it's basic adding and subtracting.