Players Wages

[Pancake]

How much do Saints pay out each month on wages for the playing staff?

 

If we went into Administration, would the players stopped being paid?

 

Would it be beneficial to the club and therefore players if they took a months pay holiday?

[bridge too far]

How much do Saints pay out each month on wages for the playing staff?

 

If we went into Administration, would the players stopped being paid?

 

Would it be beneficial to the club and therefore players if they took a months pay holiday?

 

Isn't there special provision to pay all 'football related' dues?

 

See what experts we have all become in the past 12 months

[Pancake]

Isn't there special provision to pay all 'football related' dues?

 

See what experts we have all become in the past 12 months

 

I've got absolutely no idea, hence my question.

[INFLUENCED.COM]

As employees they are not preferential are they ? doesn't the Government stand on for some of it ?

[Clapham Saint]

As employees they are not preferential are they ? doesn't the Government stand on for some of it ?

 

A proportion is preferential.

 

Given that this is capped at £800 per emplyee there will be a significant amount unsecured.

 

If the Club is sold to new aCompany/investor then all emloyment liabilities of all employees (playing or otherwise) will transfer to the new owner.

 

In terms of "Would the palyers be paid at teh end of the month?"

 

The Administrator would make a commercial decision.

 

He would have to protect the assets of the Company. Those assets include "the club" and the players registrations.

 

If not paying the palyers (say £200k for ease) would mean that they would all be able to leave and join other clubs then the administrator would be losing assets worth considerably more than £200k.

 

He would also significantly reduce the prospect of an investor bying the club (as it wouldn't have any players).

 

Long story short is that in practice they probably would be paid, however an administrator might ask them to accept slightly less than full salary.

[70's Mike]

as rupert has done such a good job in cutting wages, surely it can now be paid out of petty cash

[stevegrant]

Many clubs who have had financial troubles, particularly in Leagues 1 and 2, receive short-term (i.e. the term measured in single-figure months rather than years) loans from the PFA to pay wages. The condition of taking such a loan, however, is that the club is placed under a transfer embargo, so they can't sign anyone without the permission of the Football League.

 

Were the club to go into administration, the players (and other clubs) are due their money in full under Football League rules, regardless of what is agreed among the other creditors. This is why HMRC in particular are rejecting CVAs at football clubs - in their view, and it's a perfectly valid view to take, why should the Treasury give up 90-odd percent of what they're owed by a football club when the players are still getting paid in full?

[hamster]

.....the players (and other clubs) are due their money in full under Football League rules, regardless of what is agreed among the other creditors. This is why HMRC in particular are rejecting CVAs at football clubs - in their view, and it's a perfectly valid view to take, why should the Treasury give up 90-odd percent of what they're owed by a football club when the players are still getting paid in full?

 

Then the practice needs to be outlawed imo.

[stevegrant]

Then the practice needs to be outlawed imo.

It's one of the rather large flaws in sporting operations working as businesses, particularly when acceptance into competitions run by the governing body (i.e. the FA and Football League) is dependent on certain rules such as "footballing" staff (i.e. players and coaching staff) being paid in full in the event of administration.

 

It's clearly in place so clubs couldn't just go and raid other clubs with ridiculous offers and sign contracts with players to pay them a small fortune knowing that they'll be able to afford a year's worth of payments and then go into administration and write off the remainder.

 

One thing I just had a thought about... when Leicester went into administration, Barr Construction were paid somewhere in the region of £8m in full settlement of the cost of building the Walkers Stadium. Given it cost them about the same as it cost to build St Mary's, we've been left with a £25m mortgage to service while Leicester managed to avoid paying the majority of their construction costs, so they have a £17m (+ interest) advantage over us as they were able to write that money off.

 

In terms of the bigger picture as far as Football League finance is concerned, I would advocate the Football League bringing in much tougher punishments for clubs who go into administration initially, rather than punishing clubs in retrospect after they've got themselves sorted, as is currently the case.

 

They wouldn't be able to bring such a punishment in for a few years - until the national and global financial situation has cooled down a bit - but I think any club who is unable/unwilling (often the latter with clubs gambling on the carrot of promotion) to run their finances on an even keel should be punished with relegation by one division at the end of the season, rather than a points deduction. If they finish in a relegation place anyway, they should then be relegated two divisions.

 

While it's a bit of a shock tactic, I bet you every club will instantly slash their wage bill, players in League One wouldn't be able to take home £37k a week (DJ Campbell was on that at Leicester until the end of the August transfer window this season when he agreed to cut his wages in half) and we might stand a chance of seeing the Football League return to something approaching normality.

 

In Italy, they took the plunge on that a number of years ago and even though the money at the top of the game in that country has dried up somewhat from their boom period in the 90s, there are hardly any financial issues in Serie A and most of Serie B. The money in the Premier League will suffer a similar dip at some point in the not-too-distant future, clubs who aren't prepared for it will go the same way as Fiorentina did - they were relegated 3 divisions when they went bust in the top flight. A Premier League club WILL go to the wall within the next five to ten years, I'm certain of it.

[Gingeletiss]

Bugs the hell out of me, as I've just had to take a paycut to protect my job, as I'm sure, many on here have had to do so.

[Saint Keith]

 

One thing I just had a thought about... when Leicester went into administration, Barr Construction were paid somewhere in the region of £8m in full settlement of the cost of building the Walkers Stadium. Given it cost them about the same as it cost to build St Mary's, we've been left with a £25m mortgage to service while Leicester managed to avoid paying the majority of their construction costs, so they have a £17m (+ interest) advantage over us as they were able to write that money off.

 

thats what brought some of these new rules into effect. leicester commited blue murder and got away with it, and there was a right old hoohah, which is why the league brought in new rules and the HMRC starting playing hardball

 

but yes, they got away with it, and have screwed it for everyone else

[Burnsie]

One thing I just had a thought about... when Leicester went into administration, Barr Construction were paid somewhere in the region of £8m in full settlement of the cost of building the Walkers Stadium. Given it cost them about the same as it cost to build St Mary's, we've been left with a £25m mortgage to service while Leicester managed to avoid paying the majority of their construction costs, so they have a £17m (+ interest) advantage over us as they were able to write that money off.

 

I find this extraordinary. Are you sure that it was not in settlement of the balance of the cost of building the stadium? i.e., £10m-12m had already been paid at the point when they went into administration. At any rate, everyone acknowledged that Leicester had flagrantly abused the system, and the rules we currently have were brought in as a direct result of their tomfoolery.

 

In terms of the bigger picture as far as Football League finance is concerned, I would advocate the Football League bringing in much tougher punishments for clubs who go into administration initially, rather than punishing clubs in retrospect after they've got themselves sorted, as is currently the case.

 

Won't this generally amount to the same thing?

[Latheal]

While it's a bit of a shock tactic, I bet you every club will instantly slash their wage bill, players in League One wouldn't be able to take home £37k a week (DJ Campbell was on that at Leicester until the end of the August transfer window this season when he agreed to cut his wages in half) and we might stand a chance of seeing the Football League return to something approaching normality.QUOTE]

 

I'm more shocked that somebody paid DJ Campbell 37K a week - r u sure about that? Still think there is a massive case for a wage cap, but then everybody outside the top 4 will probably say that.

 

Football and law is becoming more and more grey - in the next 5 years we're going to have another "Bosman" and by that I mean some law that works perfectly well in the "real" world is applied to football. West Ham & Sheffield United have already started it, they should never, ever have paid them. They've basically admitted guilt and left themselves open to all kinds of attacks from players and managers. The next stage will be to start sueing the refs, linesmans, and then your own players for gross misconduct (when they miss an open goal in the last game of the season, miss a tackle they should have made ect).

 

I really do fear for football unless something is seriously done. I'm proud of the structure this country has (4 professional divisions is unheard of anywhere else in the world) but we've got to protect it somehow.

[stevegrant]

I find this extraordinary. Are you sure that it was not in settlement of the balance of the cost of building the stadium? i.e., £10m-12m had already been paid at the point when they went into administration. At any rate, everyone acknowledged that Leicester had flagrantly abused the system, and the rules we currently have were brought in as a direct result of their tomfoolery.

I'm not sure of the exact details, but I'm pretty sure I read that they only paid (at the very most) half of the total construction cost, less the money received from the sale of Filbert Street - which was about the same as we received for the Dell site.

 

Won't this generally amount to the same thing?

No, here's an example of what I mean.

 

Take Leicester in 02/03 when they went into administration. If they knew the punishment for going into administration was relegation regardless of how they performed that season, they'd have tried a bit harder not to overspend to the extent that they did. As it turned out, they overspent massively, went into administration and basically cheated their way to promotion to the Premier League. Even a 10-point penalty would not have stopped them getting promoted. Instead, under my idea, they would have still finished second but instead of getting promoted to the Premier League, they would have either just been prevented from being promoted (Sheffield United in third would have been the beneficiaries that season) or would actually have been relegated to League One (with the third-bottom team staying up), depending on how you interpret the rule for a team who finishes in a promotion place.

 

If, as in the case of Leeds in 06/07, they went into administration but were relegated anyway, they'd have been chucked down two divisions.

 

With something as fundamental as finance in the Football League these days, it's going to need something as draconian as that to act as a proper deterrent to clubs so they don't spend more than they can afford.

 

Punishments like this work pretty well in Italy, they've got their finances mostly in order these days - the issue in Italy is that attendances outside the top flight are dreadful so unless it's the likes of Fiorentina, Genoa, Torino or Napoli, the clubs are going to struggle regardless.

 

Fortunately, in this country, there are a hell of a lot of very well-supported clubs who aren't in the Premier League, which is why the whole of the Football League can still sustain three fully professional divisions, at least for now.

[stevegrant]

I'm more shocked that somebody paid DJ Campbell 37K a week - r u sure about that?

Absolutely positive.

 

Still think there is a massive case for a wage cap, but then everybody outside the top 4 will probably say that.

Much like the freedom of movement legislation that the EU (rightly) brought in for "ordinary" workers, it causes more problems than it solves in sport.

 

Certainly once you get into the Premier League, a salary cap simply wouldn't work, and would almost certainly be illegal as well. The way I see it, there are two possible options for a salary cap:

 

1. each club has the same amount of money to spend on wages

2. each club's salary budget is restricted to a percentage of their turnover

 

For option 1, it would never get past the consultancy stage. Some clubs clearly generate far more revenue than others, so what would the likes of Birmingham think about being restricted to spending, say, £8m a year on salaries when their turnover is £20m and their owners are willing to dip their hand in their pocket every now and then? What do these clubs then do with the money they've got left over? Chances are, all it does is make transfer fees go ridiculous again.

 

At the other end of the spectrum, you've got the likes of Blackpool averaging less than 8,000 for home games - would they even be able to spend £8m on wages? Probably not, but if the cap is set to £8m, you can be pretty sure that they'll be trying their hardest to spend as much as they're entitled to do, so that they're in a position to compete, and then they'll get into the deep brown stuff because they're spending more than they can afford, which is one of the main reasons to implement a salary cap in the first place.

 

For option 2, in my opinion, all that would do is make the gulf between the haves and the have nots even wider. Again, taking the same two clubs at opposite ends of the table, if Birmingham's turnover is £20m, and they're allowed to spend 60% of their turnover on wages, that gives them a maximum wage bill of £12m. Blackpool, on the other hand, with their annual revenue of £10m are only allowed to spend £6m. That either allows Birmingham to outbid Blackpool for any player they may both realistically be trying to sign, or it allows Birmingham to attract players who are simply out of reach for the rest. Once that gets extrapolated over a number of years, they really might as well abolish promotion and relegation between all of the divisions as the gulf in class between them will be huge.

 

Leeds would have absolutely ****ed League One if a salary cap had been in place. This is a club who made £4.5m PROFIT last year - the likes of Cheltenham at the bottom of League One probably struggled to make £4.5m in total revenue!

 

The way I see it, the two aims of the salary cap are: 1. to make clubs more responsible in the way they run the club financially, and 2. to make the leagues more competitive, to give the underdog - particularly at the top level - the opportunity to compete.

 

It's no coincidence that only one newly-promoted team in the Premier League has qualified for Europe in their first season since 1994 (Ipswich, 2001), while the top European club competition is deemed tedious by the majority of supporters/viewers in this country because you can pretty much guarantee which 4 clubs are going to be qualifying for it each season and that they'll get through the group stage without any trouble.

[um pahars]

Certainly once you get into the Premier League, a salary cap simply wouldn't work, and would almost certainly be illegal as well.

 

Granty, do some of your digging and find out exactly what happens in the lower tiers as I'm sure a salary cap is already in existence in League 2 (think League 1 also tried it for a season or two but then gave up).

 

I'm sure I remember Malwhinney and others mentioning it a while back.

 

I think it may be voluntary, but the main drive is for teams to run on a more sensible financial basis.

[Fitzhugh Fella]

Absolutely positive.

 

 

Much like the freedom of movement legislation that the EU (rightly) brought in for "ordinary" workers, it causes more problems than it solves in sport.

 

Certainly once you get into the Premier League, a salary cap simply wouldn't work, and would almost certainly be illegal as well. The way I see it, there are two possible options for a salary cap:

 

1. each club has the same amount of money to spend on wages

2. each club's salary budget is restricted to a percentage of their turnover

 

For option 1, it would never get past the consultancy stage. Some clubs clearly generate far more revenue than others, so what would the likes of Birmingham think about being restricted to spending, say, £8m a year on salaries when their turnover is £20m and their owners are willing to dip their hand in their pocket every now and then? What do these clubs then do with the money they've got left over? Chances are, all it does is make transfer fees go ridiculous again.

 

At the other end of the spectrum, you've got the likes of Blackpool averaging less than 8,000 for home games - would they even be able to spend £8m on wages? Probably not, but if the cap is set to £8m, you can be pretty sure that they'll be trying their hardest to spend as much as they're entitled to do, so that they're in a position to compete, and then they'll get into the deep brown stuff because they're spending more than they can afford, which is one of the main reasons to implement a salary cap in the first place.

 

For option 2, in my opinion, all that would do is make the gulf between the haves and the have nots even wider. Again, taking the same two clubs at opposite ends of the table, if Birmingham's turnover is £20m, and they're allowed to spend 60% of their turnover on wages, that gives them a maximum wage bill of £12m. Blackpool, on the other hand, with their annual revenue of £10m are only allowed to spend £6m. That either allows Birmingham to outbid Blackpool for any player they may both realistically be trying to sign, or it allows Birmingham to attract players who are simply out of reach for the rest. Once that gets extrapolated over a number of years, they really might as well abolish promotion and relegation between all of the divisions as the gulf in class between them will be huge.

 

Leeds would have absolutely ****ed League One if a salary cap had been in place. This is a club who made £4.5m PROFIT last year - the likes of Cheltenham at the bottom of League One probably struggled to make £4.5m in total revenue!

 

The way I see it, the two aims of the salary cap are: 1. to make clubs more responsible in the way they run the club financially, and 2. to make the leagues more competitive, to give the underdog - particularly at the top level - the opportunity to compete.

 

It's no coincidence that only one newly-promoted team in the Premier League has qualified for Europe in their first season since 1994 (Ipswich, 2001), while the top European club competition is deemed tedious by the majority of supporters/viewers in this country because you can pretty much guarantee which 4 clubs are going to be qualifying for it each season and that they'll get through the group stage without any trouble.

 

Fair play to you Steve, there is good research here. I am going to give it a good read in the morning when I can certainly do it due justice.

[FloridaMarlin]

[quote=Latheal;239111

I really do fear for football unless something is seriously done. I'm proud of the structure this country has (4 professional divisions is unheard of anywhere else in the world) but we've got to protect it somehow.

 

 

Some might argue that is the problem, that it is unrealistic to try and sustain four professional leagues in the UK.

 

Unfortunately, football in the UK is deep-rooted in tradition, of every town of any size having its own full-time, professional club.

 

That was fine when there was no other entertainment, and clubs financed themselves solely on the money they took through the gate, and trimmed their costs accordingly.

 

But even then, football history is littered with clubs who couldn't manage that and went to the wall: Accrington Stanley (OK, now reborn) and Bradford Park Avenue.

 

Back then, it was accepted as a sort of football Darwinism, but every club and its chairman is inevitably driven by pride.

 

They like the kudos of being thought of as a full-time, professional club.

 

If Eastleigh get into the Conference top flight, they will want to go full-time. OK, there is some pressure to do that, to attract the sort of players who will keep you in the league, but it's as much a question of going full-time because everyone else in the division is.

 

I'm not sure we are able, or even should be able, to sustain effectively a FIVE division, full-time set up, if you consider from the Prem down to Conference.

 

Football needs to stop living in the past, and beyond its means, and assuming that the rest of the world owes it a living. It doesn't.

 

In the same way the migrating gnus get thinned by the crocs as they cross that river, so football will succumb to some natural wastage.

 

It has to. All you can do is hope it's not your club that's among the weak and sick to get culled.

[um pahars]

Some might argue that is the problem, that it is unrealistic to try and sustain four professional leagues in the UK.

 

Unfortunately, football in the UK is deep-rooted in tradition, of every town of any size having its own full-time, professional club..

 

 

Football needs to stop living in the past, and beyond its means, and assuming that the rest of the world owes it a living. It doesn't.

 

I personally think that if football started to live within it's means, then it would still be possible to sustain four professional divisions.

 

 

The biggest problem is players wages, but IMHO there is enough money in the game so long as the wages paid out are sensible (after speaking to a few of those involved with relatively smaller clubs e.g. Exeter, Stockport & Crewe).

[stevegrant]

Granty, do some of your digging and find out exactly what happens in the lower tiers as I'm sure a salary cap is already in existence in League 2 (think League 1 also tried it for a season or two but then gave up).

 

I'm sure I remember Malwhinney and others mentioning it a while back.

 

I think it may be voluntary, but the main drive is for teams to run on a more sensible financial basis.

There's certainly "something" in place in League Two. It's "voluntary" insomuch that the clubs voted in favour of putting it in place on a season-by-season basis, so it could easily be voted against next season. The Football League would have no power whatsoever to impose a salary cap because of EU freedom of trade legislation - it only works if the clubs are willing to vote in favour of it.

 

As you rightly say, they tried it in League One as well but it only lasted a season - the clubs vetoed it after one season. I believe it's 50% of turnover in League Two and it was 60% in League One. However, I have a feeling it only refers to basic salary and doesn't include any sort of appearance/goal/clean sheet bonuses or signing-on fees, so it's still very simple for clubs to circumvent it. Most clubs in League Two do appear to be much more stable at the moment - Bournemouth, Rotherham and Luton's problems were from previous years with punishments carried into this season - with the exception of Darlington, but they do have the massive white elephant that is their stadium to cover the running costs of. 25,000 capacity with an average of about 4,000 - George Reynolds' legacy still lives on long and strong in that town, sadly.