Difficult to Even Sign Players on Free Transfers due to Their High Wages

earthworm

earthworm

Jack Burkitt
What was MArthur playing at letting Big Sam beat him to trotting out this excuse?

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11095_6474481,00.html

Indian poultry giant Venky's are expected to complete a takeover at Ewood Park next month, but chairperson Anuradha J Desai revealed earlier this week that Rovers would have just £5million to spend on strengthening the squad.
Allardyce admits it has become increasingly difficult for clubs such as Blackburn to compete with the financial heavyweights at the top of the Premier League.
He has had to rely heavily on the youth element in his squad rather than bringing in big-name signings because of financial constraints, and now even players available for nothing are becoming a struggle to afford.
"The vast sums of money that are coming in at the top end of the game are stretching the rest of the sides to try to get as much benefit out of what finance they've got and get the best players they can find for that finance," said the former Bolton and Newcastle manager.
Astronomical

"But I think that there's a big factor that's sneaked in that's made it that much more difficult - and it's not transfer fees, it's wages.
"They are astronomically high and have now made it very difficult to even take a very talented free transfer today which is what the norm would be for Blackburn in the past, or a small fee with good wages.
"Now astronomical wages are making it very difficult to take somebody who might not even have a transfer fee attached to them, because of the net value that they want and the net value that they're worth.
"And they know if you don't give it to them somebody else will."
Blackburn are currently struggling towards the bottom of the Premier League table with just nine points from nine games.
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In all seriousness though, its a worrying article. What do you think? Does this have a bearing on Championship clubs?
 
Wages will have to come down if clubs can't afford to pay them. People can't stay in contracts forever.

Expect more Free transfers rather than cash exchanges.
 
I like Big Sam. He would have been my pick when calderwood was shown the door. Its an honest take on the difficulties faced by the smaller premier league clubs. In contrast we had the PFA saying in the summer that there would be a record number of players out of work. There is an inbalance in the way the tv money is distributed it is far too top heavy. Too many clubs too far in dept and imo administration is not stiff enough a sanction, Lots of local businesses suffering the effects of badly run clubs. I would like to see rules where only lets say 60% of turnover could be paid in salarys, it will never happen mind you.
 
The thing is here, we're being told by somebody who really should know, that even loan signings aren't cheap like us fans often probably think they are. At the same time, Doughty has come out and said he's looking at top end Championship or Premiership players as loan targets.

Surely this just does not compute? That would nicely explain why we've done f*** all with the loan market. What's going to given first then? Standards or frugal running of the club? *

... or maybe that mythical Premiership quality player on low wages will come riding over the rainbow into the City Ground atop his unicorn steed after all ...



* EDIT: Or Billy Davies.
 
Anatoli said:
A wage cap on football players was needed about twenty years ago.
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With the top players earning over £100k a week it, by some twisted logic, filters down to the bottom so that lesser players are earning astronomical wages aswell (like none scoring Benjani at West Ham picking up over £40k!!)

Football is f**ked when players such as Lawrence and Kitson would rather join a disaster club like Pompey because they are willing to match their 'Premier League wages'.
 
I don't want to borrow the neighbour's lawn mower and start to cut my grass, only for him to come and ask for it back before my lawn is finished,
 
What I can't compute is when our chairman does an interview with the evening post. In which he states that the manager will play a more significant role in transfers. To then hear the manager on the radio after the Ipswich game claiming to know nothing of this "new role" and things remain the same. Now maybe between now and then the have discussed this and everybody is clear in their roles. I know one think if I was paying someone thousands per week they would know what there job is! I think chairman manager relationship may well be having an effect on transfers
 
Or was it Billy's way of telling us not to get our hopes up? Or as a double bluff and we will get a few faces.

Obviously it won't be the second one, Billy does like to be a little devious though.
 
The_City_Is_Ours said:
With the top players earning over £100k a week it, by some twisted logic, filters down to the bottom so that lesser players are earning astronomical wages aswell (like none scoring Benjani at West Ham picking up
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Do you mean Benni McCarthy?
 
Wage cap would make no difference.

You can top up a basic wage with all sorts of bonuses / incentives / freebies.

Sadly, whilst the right thing to do for fair play it will never happen.
 
"Big Sam" has moaned that the government needs to scrap the 50% taxrate for high-end earners because it stops him signing people. To be honest I think that 50% tax on a footballer earning millions per year isn't such a terrible thing and there are more important things to worry about than how high a calibre of players Blackburn Rovers can attract when considering taxation policy.
 
I think one of the points he makes clear is when agents talk about money 'wages' they want to talk about net wages. And when talking in these terms it leaves the club to also pay the tax and NI. So its not difficult to see why he would not be a fan of 50% tax its more cost to the club not the player. You never know it might be something that we have to consider should we get promoted
 
Something that had not occured to me before is that pretty much every professional football player is way over the 50% tax threshold (ignoring image right deals and other scams). That means HMRC receives over £600m every year just from prem wages; probably close to a billion for the whole pyramid I guess. Pretty crazy; I doubt the government is desperate for them to institute a salary cap any time soon.

I also didn't realise quite how much wages had risen: according to the all knowing wikipedia the average prem salary in 1991 was £75k a year. It must be closer to that a week now: 5000% inflation in 20 years. mental.

Happily they're all boned anyway. The whole wage escalator is based on increasing TV revenues and that is based on increased TV audience. Except of course most prem football is now like watching paint dry so audiences will start to fall. Sure, they can pad it out a bit longer by selling into asia, but they only get viewers when man u or chelsea are playing and only then when it's on free-to-air. Pretty soon the clubs are going to face the prospect of falling TV income and player contracts they can't fulfill. Quality (and viewing figures) will drop even further when all the foreign players realise they can do better in Europe and then still further when it turns out that the prem's pitiful youth development scheme has produced a generation of 6'5" one footed players who can only hoof and run and won't get out of bed for less than half a mil.

Personally, I think a good proportion of the current prem will struggle financially in the next 5 years or so.

Good article: http://footballblog.co.uk/capitalism-kills-english-football.html
 
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RufusTFirefly said:
Except of course most prem football is now like watching paint dry so audiences will start to fall.
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Indeed. I've called a Sky TV subscribtion Man Ure Tax before and I will again now. f*** right off am I paying for that shite. I've got my Forest season ticket which gives me plenty of live football to watch. If I want more, the BBC have some Championship games, and there's the odd international on, I'd rather get a season ticket at Notts as well or go and watch Nottingham Rugby or something if I was hungry for more sport.

I do miss Sky Sports News since they took it off Freeview, but they can f*** right off am I paying Man U Tax to watch it.
 
RufusTFirefly said:
Something that had not occured to me before is that pretty much every professional football player is way over the 50% tax threshold (ignoring image right deals and other scams). That means HMRC receives over £600m every year just from prem wages; probably close to a billion for the whole pyramid I guess. Pretty crazy; I doubt the government is desperate for them to institute a salary cap any time soon.
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The Inland Revenue will move to close the tax loophole used by Premier League footballers to protect their multimillion pound salaries. The EFRBS - employer-financed retirement benefit schemes - are legal and have been routinely offered by clubs as part of contract negotiations with top players. They allow high earners such as footballers or City bankers to pay 50 per cent of their income at source into trusts, which prevents the Revenue from taxing them fully.
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linky
 
Perhaps that is why Forest do not take advantage of Bosman frees.

The only one in recent time is Adebola...but we have lost a few in that situation (Commons and Clingan come to mind) perhaps we may lose a few more end of season we many out of contract, and probably those players will be getting offered lots of money to sign on and in weekly wage!
 
The problem with wages is not just the cost - it's the destabilising effect on the other players. Take Shorey, for example, who signed for WBA for c£3m. There was talk (admittedly rumour only) that we could have got him for £1.5m, which when added to the £30k per week would have cost us roughly the same £3m total over one year.

However.....paying him three times as much as the next best-paid player (rumour again, but would Earnie be on about £10k per week?) would have gone down like a turd in a swimming pool. I suppose there's ways and means with signing on fees, bonuses, etc, but I think we need to accept that we won't sign anybody whose earning capacity is in excess of c£10k per week. This limits us to promising young players on the way up or experienced dogs on the way down. That way, with the chairman's help, we're able to pay our bills and continue to trade debt-free (apart from the debt to the chairman!).
 
If all the "non wealthy" Clubs were to stand together - then something would get done. But they wont - they just moan instead. They should threaten to go on strike and declare as ONE that they will not allow Sky coverage at their grounds or play ManUre, Citeh or Chelski until the league is made more equitable. The Fans should boycott any company that advertises at Old Traff, City of Manc or the Bridge stadiums.
The FA needs to copy some of the USA ideas that keep their sports competitive.
If it was France the Ipswich fans would block Manchester with tractors every fooking Saturday!
 
Le Juif Rouge said:
If it was France the Ipswich fans would block Manchester with tractors every fooking Saturday!
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If the Ipswich fans used their tractors to blockade the M25, that would probably have a more detrimental effect on Manchester United's attendances! lol
 
seenheaded said:
"Big Sam" has moaned that the government needs to scrap the 50% taxrate for high-end earners because it stops him signing people. To be honest I think that 50% tax on a footballer earning millions per year isn't such a terrible thing and there are more important things to worry about than how high a calibre of players Blackburn Rovers can attract when considering taxation policy.
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They should bring in an ugly tax. That would serve the lumpy faced bastard right.
 
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