Latest football club wagelist

[HangTime]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/10249101.stm

Club - 2009 (2008):
Chelsea - £167m (£172m)
Man Utd - £123m (£121m)
Liverpool - £107m (£90m)
Arsenal - £104m (£101m)
Man City - £83m (£54m)

Interesting to see Liverpool surge past Arsenal in the wages stakes. Chelsea still way out in front as one might expect. Next year when figures for 2009-10 come out you'd expect another big jump for man city.

However what I find even more interesting in this article is this:

the wages ratio in the Football League was 86% as a whole and 90% in the Championship

We traditionally hear about the 'outrageous' wages spent by premiership clubs, but in terms of wages:revenue ratio, the big boys aren't spending beyond their means anywhere near as much as the smaller clubs on average (just 67%). If you think about it 86% is pretty shocking given that presumably the smaller clubs still have pretty hefty overheads (in relative terms) like mortgage/loan repayments, upkeep of the ground, policing etc. 90% in the Championship is surely a sign of them quite literally banking on getting promotion to the Premiership, especially when you see them splashing millions of pounds on new players to boot.

 

[HangTime]

Well obviously there is an element of wage inflation seeping down but the only reason that can happen is the drive of clubs to compete in the Championship. Ultimately they are the ones who sign the contracts and agree to pay these Prem reserve players £10k/week, because they are harbouring ambitions of using those players to push them forwards into the top flight.

If you think about it the Premiership clubs are not going to hire every single player out there to fill up a 50-strong reserve team squad, teams in the lower leagues can bring in lesser players, scour the foreign markets, focus on youth etc if they are serious about their wage structure. Maybe they just have an over-inflated opinion of the calibre of player they should have at the club. It's not just wages, you see all sorts of multi-million pound deals going on in the Championship, you know, your Ade Akinbiyis and your Michael Chopras.

At the end of the day, the teams vying for promotion should by and large be the teams that got relegated from the Prem (due to their superior squad and parachute payments), plus the odd up-and-coming side. Some might say that is a sorry state of affairs, resulting in a yo-yo situation (West Brom etc) and not giving other clubs a chance - but ultimately that is what logic dictates should happen, and other clubs need to be aware of that; they need to realise that there are only so many carrots available in that division, being challenged for by traditionally much bigger rabbits, but plenty of sticks waiting to whack them if they fail.