Our Wage Bill

[NoFear 23]

Over the past 7-8 years, we have been leading the Salary League table in EPL. Most of our rival fans and managers alike (Im looking at you, Mr. Whinger) have been using this point to state that we have been buying success. But Im gald the club have finally started to look into this matter.

Wage bill in 03/04 - 115m pounds rose to 172m by 07/08. But with us becoming what I had call frugal rather than miserly over the past 3 summers, we have seen this number reduce to 142.6m by the end of 09/10. But this is still a distant 20m off the 2nd placed Man Utd.

And now by releasing Ballack (120k), Joey (90k), Ricky (85k), Belleti (65k), Deco (96k) we have managed to shave off almost 20-25m off our current wage bill. Also, our losses over the years have been reducing on a yearly basis. Last yr we posted a net loss of 42m pounds. Considering all these factors, I can see ourselves turning green by the end of 2011-2012 season. The future is green or should i say Blue !??!

[BlueLion. 21,491]

We've done well to lower our wage bill but I can only see it going up as we need to revitalise the squad.

[LDN Blue 7,903]

Agreed with BlueLion there. We will need to spend on younger players to keep our team fresh, I won't complain if we make a big money bid for a promising player, it shows we're willing to take that risk on youth.

[eldo 868]

I have read somewhere that we will be paying Ramires double what he was being paid at Benfica, so 2m € per year.

[BlueLion. 21,491]

That's quite likely. La Liga, the Premier League, der Bundesliga and Serie A are the richest leagues because of sponsorships and fanbases. There are some exceptional cases where clubs are very rich outside of this monopoly, but in general, if you were to compare the wage bill and sponsorship deals of the top four clubs in the Premier League with those of the Liga Sagres, and you'd see my point. What I'm getting at is that's why players are always attracted to Spain, England, Germany and Italy to play their club football - names like Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Chelsea, Bayern Munchen, Internazionale and Milan appeal to moreorless every football player in the world. In England, the typical average wage is probably double that of the Liga Sagres.

[EskWeston 696]

Our wage bill will have dropped massively with all the departures, and the new arrivals will not be on the same sort of salries thats for sure. Plus if we are bringing through youngsters then again we only have small wages. Good steps for sure.

[NattyBlue 44]

Good steps but we'll know more on the situation at the club mid season I think. We can gauge it on youngsters that have left or had appearances and the amount of new signings brought in...