Our wage bill

[GrahamC]

One of the things that puzzled me about Gould’s 2 interviews, (club one on YouTube & GT on Radio Bris) was his comment that our wage bill should see us “in contention for top six”.

This surprised me for 2 reasons;

Firstly I’m pretty sure it was stated we cut our wage bill by a third in the summer when we released 13 first team players & also persuaded Weimann & Baker to take big reductions to stay.

Secondly I don’t know the exact number, but there are a fair few teams with parachute payments & clearly Bournemouth, Sheff U, WBA & Fulham to name but 4, will pay wages completely out of our league.

Is he really saying that after these 4 we pay more (or comparably) with the likes of Forest, Boro, QPR, Cardiff?

[Calculus]

10 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

One of the things that puzzled me about Gould’s 2 interviews, (club one on YouTube & GT on Radio Bris) was his comment that our wage bill should see us “in contention for top six”.

This surprised me for 2 reasons;

Firstly I’m pretty sure it was stated we cut our wage bill by a third in the summer when we released 13 first team players & also persuaded Weimann & Baker to take big reductions to stay.

Secondly I don’t know the exact number, but there are a fair few teams with parachute payments & clearly Bournemouth, Sheff U, WBA & Fulham to name but 4, will pay wages completely out of our league.

Is he really saying that after these 4 we pay more (or comparably) with the likes of Forest, Boro, QPR, Cardiff?

I noticed that as well and was surprised to say the least, but it would seem that he did.

[Simon bristol]

11 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

One of the things that puzzled me about Gould’s 2 interviews, (club one on YouTube & GT on Radio Bris) was his comment that our wage bill should see us “in contention for top six”.

This surprised me for 2 reasons;

Firstly I’m pretty sure it was stated we cut our wage bill by a third in the summer when we released 13 first team players & also persuaded Weimann & Baker to take big reductions to stay.

Secondly I don’t know the exact number, but there are a fair few teams with parachute payments & clearly Bournemouth, Sheff U, WBA & Fulham to name but 4, will pay wages completely out of our league.

Is he really saying that after these 4 we pay more (or comparably) with the likes of Forest, Boro, QPR, Cardiff?

Im sure we are in the same ballpark as some of those clubs, some of those pre covid contracts we are paying out must be horrendous!

[Coxy27]

I would be willing to bet we aren't one of the top 6 wage payers, overall.

However he probably just meant we're competitive, and certainly should be challenging rather than what we are doing.

[Eddie Hitler]

It's also disingenuous to talk of a "wage bill" in isolation.

The total annual cost of a player is their wages plus the amortisation of their transfer fee.

If you have a policy of bringing in older players on free transfers then you will have a high wage bill but a low level of amortisation.

If however you are paying big fees for promising young players then your wage bill will be low but your annual amortisation high.

It's very easy to spin financial accounts by cherry picking individual lines that support your argument.

[Kid in the Riot]

It's utter nonsense.

Our wage bill isn't top 10, let alone top 6.

Here's the 19/20 season from Swiss Ramble and no way have we jumped up the table significantly since then (replace Villa and Leeds with Fulham and Bournemouth).

It's one thing I feared about Gould's appointment. Very much a Lansdown man, who will defend him to the hilt. Play-off budget is just an outright lie, and I'd challenge Gould/the club to justify it if they can. 

 

Edited November 9, 2021 by Kid in the Riot

[chinapig]

Let's assume he was telling the truth. The obvious question to ask is how have we run up a top 6 wage bill to create a bottom 6 squad?

[Eddie Hitler]

26 minutes ago, chinapig said:

Let's assume he was telling the truth. The obvious question to ask is how have we run up a top 6 wage bill to create a bottom 6 squad?

 

[WarksRobin]

Wages as a % of turnover could well be top 6

[Phileas Fogg]

42 minutes ago, Kid in the Riot said:

It's utter nonsense.

Our wage bill isn't top 10, let alone top 6.

Here's the 19/20 season from Swiss Ramble and no way have we jumped up the table significantly since then (replace Villa and Leeds with Fulham and Bournemouth).

It's one thing I feared about Gould's appointment. Very much a Lansdown man, who will defend him to the hilt. Play-off budget is just an outright lie, and I'd challenge Gould/the club to justify it if they can. 

 

Makes the answer all the more strange. Odd thing to lie about - and simplifies things to a very reductive level. It’s obviously not as simple as he makes out when we have such a poor squad

[chinapig]

7 minutes ago, Eddie Hitler said:

 

Yes, it is rather a rhetorical question!

[Kodjias Wrist]

43 minutes ago, Kid in the Riot said:

It's utter nonsense.

Our wage bill isn't top 10, let alone top 6.

Here's the 19/20 season from Swiss Ramble and no way have we jumped up the table significantly since then (replace Villa and Leeds with Fulham and Bournemouth).

It's one thing I feared about Gould's appointment. Very much a Lansdown man, who will defend him to the hilt. Play-off budget is just an outright lie, and I'd challenge Gould/the club to justify it if they can. 

 

Wasn't it said that the wage bill has also been reduced by 20% this season? Meaning that either there is a lot of fibbing going on or the players we brought in for Holden are on crazy wages.

[maxjak]

So not only are they useless...........but the majority of them are overpaid and useless?  

[BTRFTG]

48 minutes ago, Kid in the Riot said:

It's utter nonsense.

Our wage bill isn't top 10, let alone top 6.

Here's the 19/20 season from Swiss Ramble and no way have we jumped up the table significantly since then (replace Villa and Leeds with Fulham and Bournemouth).

It's one thing I feared about Gould's appointment. Very much a Lansdown man, who will defend him to the hilt. Play-off budget is just an outright lie, and I'd challenge Gould/the club to justify it if they can. 

 

Depends how you look at it. Swiss Ramble's figures highlight raw numbers and that 4 of the clubs above us include bonus payments, some have extended accounting periods. Others below may have outsourced some operational costs that then do not fall as wages.

There's also an option to look at wages in respect of overall turnover. In City's case and for the last published period (with nearly £700k in directors remuneration,) employee costs were coppers under £28m, that against a turnover of £16.2m. For every £1 earned City paid out in wages alone £1.73. I'd be amazed if that wasn't top 6 in The Championship.

 

[Davefevs]

54 minutes ago, Kid in the Riot said:

It's utter nonsense.

Our wage bill isn't top 10, let alone top 6.

Here's the 19/20 season from Swiss Ramble and no way have we jumped up the table significantly since then (replace Villa and Leeds with Fulham and Bournemouth).

It's one thing I feared about Gould's appointment. Very much a Lansdown man, who will defend him to the hilt. Play-off budget is just an outright lie, and I'd challenge Gould/the club to justify it if they can. 

 

I fully expect we are top half, somewhere between 8th-12th (nearer 12th than 8th is my guess).  We are obviously not gonna be anywhere near the PP clubs, but we are in that next chunk I reckon.

And therefore we should be competing for top 6, even if we don’t get there.  Which is what RG said.

As I’ve often posted we’ve given it all the “Billy big bollox” that we are world class, leading this, leading that, etc, therefore if you really feel that, then you should expect more for every pound than a club that isn’t world class, etc.

Now my opinion is that we are far from world class in anything we do (perhaps some need to stop the hyperbole of using / mis-using of terms like world class), therefore if league position was based on “budgets” we should be around mid-table, just above.

Couple that with teams like Luton, Coventry, Millwall, etc who are doing far better on half our resources makes me think 1) we are underperforming substantially and 2) we have little critical evaluation of performance, certainly in the less tangible areas like recruitment, where “transfer profit” is a very misleading KPI.

We need to get our act together….quickly.

Nice stadium and Training Facilities does not equal “well-run club”….it means we have an owner willing to spend money on facilities.  Everything beneath that infrastructure needs a big review (and nit an internal one).

We are world class at wasting opportunity though.

[TonyTonyTony]

If he is telling the truth, then its proof of shocking mis-management. If he is telling porkies, then you would ask why, as it would be far better in his shoes to pretend the wages were lower than top 6 in order to "defend" where we are in the league. The other option could be he is misinformed. 

Very concerning in any scenario tbh

 

Edited November 9, 2021 by TonyTonyTony

[Kid in the Riot]

30 minutes ago, BTRFTG said:

Depends how you look at it. Swiss Ramble's figures highlight raw numbers and that 4 of the clubs above us include bonus payments, some have extended accounting periods. Others below may have outsourced some operational costs that then do not fall as wages.

There's also an option to look at wages in respect of overall turnover. In City's case and for the last published period (with nearly £700k in directors remuneration,) employee costs were coppers under £28m, that against a turnover of £16.2m. For every £1 earned City paid out in wages alone £1.73. I'd be amazed if that wasn't top 6 in The Championship.

Be prepared to be amazed. Appreciate a lot of the figures are from the season before but still looks like we'd be 8th-10th. 

 

[Red-Robbo]

I thought they must have re-employed Alan Dicks and Stephen Kew to negotiate the contracts.

[BTRFTG]

41 minutes ago, Kid in the Riot said:

Be prepared to be amazed. Appreciate a lot of the figures are from the season before but still looks like we'd be 8th-10th. 

 

Appreciate these things aren't easy to compare given the way in which companies are structured, but in the above example the figures used in the 'wages to turnover' chart in City's case are for the Holding Company, not the Football Club. Not sure how other clubs in the table stack up in that respect? As the Holding Company turns over an additional  £11m to the football club but with hardly any additional staff costs, that's why the overspend on wages reduces from an actual  173% to the reported 123% when the Holding Company is included. 

In the case of bonus payments for the promoted sides clearly these will fall due during the promotion season whilst the additional turnover to fund them arises in the following period. For that reason in the last decade Wigan's wages have ranged between £45m and £12m as they wobble between the divisions. In City's case we moved from just over £6m to £32m yet never got anywhere near the playoffs, let alone promotion.

[Davefevs]

21 minutes ago, BTRFTG said:

Appreciate these things aren't easy to compare given the way in which companies are structured, but in the above example the figures used in the 'wages to turnover' chart in City's case are for the Holding Company, not the Football Club. Not sure how other clubs in the table stack up in that respect? As the Holding Company turns over an additional  £11m to the football club but with hardly any additional staff costs, that's why the overspend on wages reduces from an actual  173% to the reported 123% when the Holding Company is included. 

In the case of bonus payments for the promoted sides clearly these will fall due during the promotion season whilst the additional turnover to fund them arises in the following period. For that reason in the last decade Wigan's wages have ranged between £45m and £12m as they wobble between the divisions. In City's case we moved from just over £6m to £32m yet never got anywhere near the playoffs, let alone promotion.

….and we’ve seen with Derby, lots of staff transfers between one company and another to “hide” stuff.

[exAtyeoMax]

2 hours ago, Eddie Hitler said:

 

Wankel rotary engine

Edited November 9, 2021 by exAtyeoMax

[Bristol Rob]

1 hour ago, Kid in the Riot said:

Be prepared to be amazed. Appreciate a lot of the figures are from the season before but still looks like we'd be 8th-10th. 

 

If this tells us one thing, it closes the argument that 'all footballers are thick' when across the division, they all seem capable of extracting big wages off seemingly successful captains of industry who now own football clubs.

[exAtyeoMax]

6 minutes ago, Bristol Rob said:

If this tells us one thing, it closes the argument that 'all footballers are thick' when across the division, they all seem capable of extracting big wages off seemingly successful captains of industry who now own football clubs.

To be honest, I put footballers in the same bracket as beautiful women. Even the most intelligent men can be made to look stupid by them!

[Bristol Rob]

22 minutes ago, exAtyeoMax said:

To be honest, I put footballers in the same bracket as beautiful women. Even the most intelligent men can be made to look stupid by them!

 

[Simon79]

3 hours ago, GrahamC said:

One of the things that puzzled me about Gould’s 2 interviews, (club one on YouTube & GT on Radio Bris) was his comment that our wage bill should see us “in contention for top six”.

This surprised me for 2 reasons;

Firstly I’m pretty sure it was stated we cut our wage bill by a third in the summer when we released 13 first team players & also persuaded Weimann & Baker to take big reductions to stay.

Secondly I don’t know the exact number, but there are a fair few teams with parachute payments & clearly Bournemouth, Sheff U, WBA & Fulham to name but 4, will pay wages completely out of our league.

Is he really saying that after these 4 we pay more (or comparably) with the likes of Forest, Boro, QPR, Cardiff?

Did notice that comment, personally would of had us down between 8th - 12th at a quick glimpse at the league. Plus I thought it was said that wages has been cut by about 30% this season. We must of been paying top two level last season! COYR 

[Kid in the Riot]

1 hour ago, BTRFTG said:

Appreciate these things aren't easy to compare given the way in which companies are structured, but in the above example the figures used in the 'wages to turnover' chart in City's case are for the Holding Company, not the Football Club. Not sure how other clubs in the table stack up in that respect? As the Holding Company turns over an additional  £11m to the football club but with hardly any additional staff costs, that's why the overspend on wages reduces from an actual  173% to the reported 123% when the Holding Company is included. 

In the case of bonus payments for the promoted sides clearly these will fall due during the promotion season whilst the additional turnover to fund them arises in the following period. For that reason in the last decade Wigan's wages have ranged between £45m and £12m as they wobble between the divisions. In City's case we moved from just over £6m to £32m yet never got anywhere near the playoffs, let alone promotion.

They aren't easy to compare but the evidence appears to suggest we're probably closer to a midtable wage bill than one where we "should" (Gould's word) be competing for the play-offs. 

Gould could be referring to wages to turnover, however I'd suggest that whilst that confirms what we already know (that Lansdown's investment in the club should be applauded), it isn't as helpful in terms of assessing "real" wage expenditure by clubs in the division. The truth on that is each season we begin miles off the 3-6 clubs in the division benefitting from first or second season parachute payments, and below that is probably a group of 3-5 clubs that have a higher wage bill too. 

In Gould/Lansdown's defence, we have bridged the gap by significantly growing our revenue over the past 5 years, and we certainly should be performing much better than we are currently.

[BTRFTG]

48 minutes ago, Kid in the Riot said:

They aren't easy to compare but the evidence appears to suggest we're probably closer to a midtable wage bill than one where we "should" (Gould's word) be competing for the play-offs. 

Gould could be referring to wages to turnover, however I'd suggest that whilst that confirms what we already know (that Lansdown's investment in the club should be applauded), it isn't as helpful in terms of assessing "real" wage expenditure by clubs in the division. The truth on that is each season we begin miles off the 3-6 clubs in the division benefitting from first or second season parachute payments, and below that is probably a group of 3-5 clubs that have a higher wage bill too. 

In Gould/Lansdown's defence, we have bridged the gap by significantly growing our revenue over the past 5 years, and we certainly should be performing much better than we are currently.

Probably true but we need to forget about parachute payments. They exist for a reason and clubs who benefit from them have earned them. That City haven't and are by far the biggest club who should have done, well, that's entirely our fault.

There is still scope, just, to play the system via loanees plus a decent scouting network but again in those areas City are and have been Non-League.