Confrimed - Abbey and Holmes going

[Brogue]

Obviously he's a professional who just wants to get paid at the end of the week,

And therein lies the rub - no matter how much you love your employer, if they stop paying you on time and you've got a mortgage to pay and a baby to take care of, you're going to become very pragmatic very quickly.

Portsmouth is a good move for the lad, club on the up, within commuting distance. I hope we've got a sell-on, easy to see him going for a couple of million in a year or two if he stays injury-free.

Surprised Yiadom's still here to be honest, you'd think he's the highest earner and he's an experienced Championship player.

I don't think Yiadom's wage is that high really, I don't know how it compares to the rest of the squad mind. He re-signed when we were under budget restrictions in the Championship, which some sources say are around £3k per week. That's probably one of our highest earners though now to be honest, surprised we can actually afford him.

according to the interspaz, and to be taken with a large pinch of salt

Paul Mukairu £5,800
Sam Smith £5,600
Harlee Dean £5,200
Harvey Knibbs £4,200
Lewis Wing £4,000
Tom McIntyre £3,600 £187,200
Andy Yiadom £3,500 £182,000
Clinton Mola £3,400
Nesta Guinness-Walker £2,900
Tom Holmes £2,600
Sam Hutchinson £2,600
Amadou Mbengue £2,500
Ben Elliott £2,500
Coniah Boyce-Clarke £2,400
Charlie Savage £2,400
Femi Azeez £2,300
Joel Pereira £2,100
David Button £1,400
Jeriel Dorsett £1,100
Nelson Abbey £900
Michael Craig £900
Jayden Wareham £810
John Ryan £810
Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan £700
Adrian Akande £700
Caylan Vickers £680
Geniero Maragh £640
Hamid Abdul-Salem £630

[YorkshireRoyal99]

If we believe that list to be anywhere near accurate, we have seriously overpaid for both Dean and Mola. The rest are about what you'd expect given when they signed, current squad status, situation of the club etc. Button may be "underpaid" in contrast to the rest of the squad.

[Clyde1998]

And therein lies the rub - no matter how much you love your employer, if they stop paying you on time and you've got a mortgage to pay and a baby to take care of, you're going to become very pragmatic very quickly.

Portsmouth is a good move for the lad, club on the up, within commuting distance. I hope we've got a sell-on, easy to see him going for a couple of million in a year or two if he stays injury-free.

Surprised Yiadom's still here to be honest, you'd think he's the highest earner and he's an experienced Championship player.

I don't think Yiadom's wage is that high really, I don't know how it compares to the rest of the squad mind. He re-signed when we were under budget restrictions in the Championship, which some sources say are around £3k per week. That's probably one of our highest earners though now to be honest, surprised we can actually afford him.

according to the interspaz, and to be taken with a large pinch of salt

Paul Mukairu £5,800
Sam Smith £5,600
Harlee Dean £5,200
Harvey Knibbs £4,200
Lewis Wing £4,000
Tom McIntyre £3,600 £187,200
Andy Yiadom £3,500 £182,000
Clinton Mola £3,400
Nesta Guinness-Walker £2,900
Tom Holmes £2,600
Sam Hutchinson £2,600
Amadou Mbengue £2,500
Ben Elliott £2,500
Coniah Boyce-Clarke £2,400
Charlie Savage £2,400
Femi Azeez £2,300
Joel Pereira £2,100
David Button £1,400
Jeriel Dorsett £1,100
Nelson Abbey £900
Michael Craig £900
Jayden Wareham £810
John Ryan £810
Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan £700
Adrian Akande £700
Caylan Vickers £680
Geniero Maragh £640
Hamid Abdul-Salem £630

These are all fairly similar to the Football Manager estimates for these players:

1. Smith - £6,000
2. Mukairu - £5,747 (Reading paying 25%)
3. Dean - £5,000
4. Knibbs - £4,000
5. Wing - £4,000
6. McIntyre - £4,000 (£1,000 appearance)
7. Yiadom - £3,000
8. Holmes - £3,000
9. Hutchinson - £3,000
10. Mola - £2,500
11. Guinness-Walker - £2,500
12. Button - £2,500
13. Mbengue - £2,250
14. Elliott - £2,000
15. Boyce-Clarke - £2,000 (£1,000 appearance; £1,000 clean sheet)
16. Savage - £2,000
17. Pereira - £2,000
18. Azeez - £1,500
19. Dorsett - £1,200 (£1,000 appearance; £1,000 clean sheet)
20. Abbey - £1,000 (£1,000 appearance; £500 clean sheet)
21. Craig - £1,000
22. Wareham - £800
23. Ryan - £800
24. Ehibhatiomhan - £700
25. Akande - £600
26. Vickers - £600
27. Maragh - £600
28. Abdul-Salem - £600

Notable players missing from the above list:

1. Bouzanis - £1,500 (Sutton paying 50%)
2. Andresson - £1,500 (Carlisle paying 100%)
3. Rushesha - £1,200
4. Bindon - £600 (£1,200 after ten league matches)
5. Carson - £600
6. Camara - £600
7. Jahmari Clarke - £600

All other full-time players are between £350 and £600p/w.

[tmesis]

125k a month for the stadium, still nowhere near making a dent in the 1.2 million A MONTH!! losses

That's over £14 million a year.

Given the salaries listed above, our wage bill, unless I'm mistaken, is not even £4 million a year.

That would mean that even if we sold the entire playing squad, and used Sunday league players instead, we'd still be losing £10 million a year.

[Clyde1998]

125k a month for the stadium, still nowhere near making a dent in the 1.2 million A MONTH!! losses

That's over £14 million a year.

Given the salaries listed above, our wage bill, unless I'm mistaken, is not even £4 million a year.

That would mean that even if we sold the entire playing squad, and used Sunday league players instead, we'd still be losing £10 million a year.

That implies either our wage bill is higher than the estimates show. Perhaps things like bonuses, as well as corporate National Insurance and pension costs.

In terms of other League One clubs:

1. Blackpool paid £7.5m in staff costs (inc. NICs and pensions) in 2020, rising to £8.2m in 2021 - the latter includes promotion bonuses.
2. Portsmouth paid £7.9m in both 2021 and 2022.
3. Charlton paid £9.3m and £10.6m in 2021 and 2022 respectively.
4. Peterborough paid £6.2m and £7.0m in 2020 and 2021 respectively.
5. Ipswich paid £13.4m (2021) and £16.4m (2022).
6. Plymouth paid £6.0m (2022) and £9.1m (2023) - the latter will include promotion bonuses.

Most clubs are small enough not to be required to file full accounts, but it appears most similar sized clubs to us are paying between £6-9m in wages in League One.

Even with us not having a huge amount of high earners by League One standard, we do have a sizable squad compared to most League One clubs and having a Category One academy will mean we'll have a very large number of staff members compared to a typical League One club. I'd be surprised if our total staff wage bill is less than £8m, tbh.

[tmesis]

I'd be surprised if our total staff wage bill is less than £8m, tbh.

Even at £8 million a year, we'd still be losing £6 million a year if we replaced them with players who played for nothing.

Either that £1.2 million loss per month figure is completely wrong, or there are some horrendous outgoings we aren't even considering.

[Snowflake Royal]

Obviously he's a professional who just wants to get paid at the end of the week,

And therein lies the rub - no matter how much you love your employer, if they stop paying you on time and you've got a mortgage to pay and a baby to take care of, you're going to become very pragmatic very quickly.

Portsmouth is a good move for the lad, club on the up, within commuting distance. I hope we've got a sell-on, easy to see him going for a couple of million in a year or two if he stays injury-free.

Surprised Yiadom's still here to be honest, you'd think he's the highest earner and he's an experienced Championship player.

I don't think Yiadom's wage is that high really, I don't know how it compares to the rest of the squad mind. He re-signed when we were under budget restrictions in the Championship, which some sources say are around £3k per week. That's probably one of our highest earners though now to be honest, surprised we can actually afford him.

Budget restrictions in the Champ were about £8k a week.

He'll have never been on a huge salary as we picked him up from Barnsley fairly cheap when they were relegated. They certainly wouldn't have been paying him lots.

But probably still one of the highest remaining earners at the club.

[Clyde1998]

I'd be surprised if our total staff wage bill is less than £8m, tbh.

Even at £8 million a year, we'd still be losing £6 million a year if we replaced them with players who played for nothing.

Either that £1.2 million loss per month figure is completely wrong, or there are some horrendous outgoings we aren't even considering.

There's also the costs of the academy (sizable overlap with wages), maintenance of facilities, various services the club subscribe to (such as player data), rent.

I do wonder if it's £1.2m in expenses each month though, not £1.2m losses each month. I cannot see how we can still be losing that level of money each month given the amount of cost cutting that's going on - especially in regards to player wages.

[Snowflake Royal]

125k a month for the stadium, still nowhere near making a dent in the 1.2 million A MONTH!! losses

That's over £14 million a year.

Given the salaries listed above, our wage bill, unless I'm mistaken, is not even £4 million a year.

That would mean that even if we sold the entire playing squad, and used Sunday league players instead, we'd still be losing £10 million a year.

Every time we have ever had a discussion about our wage bill it has been wildly underestimated compared to the next set of accounts.

Following PL relegation people said almost every year we must have halved our wage bill because a couple of high profile players left, and yet it was continually between £24m and £44m a year until about the last season or two when the FL really hit us with the financial behaviour bat. Even then it only went down to about £12m - £16m.

Yeah we've taken big slices off it with Moore, Meite and Joao going. But it's the extreme of optimism to think we've cut it as far as some of these figures suggest.

[Snowflake Royal]

Yeah, just checked the last Club Policies accounts thread.

We should get the accounts for 2022/23 in a couple of months, but for 2021/22 our wage bill was still £25m a season.

In theory we were capped at iirc £16m last season, and given we failed to meet our business plan by selling players to fund us, we could potentially have been over.

There is no chance our wage bill this season is a quarter of last season. Half would be a bloody good effort.

[Snowflake Royal]

I'd be surprised if our total staff wage bill is less than £8m, tbh.

Even at £8 million a year, we'd still be losing £6 million a year if we replaced them with players who played for nothing.

Either that £1.2 million loss per month figure is completely wrong, or there are some horrendous outgoings we aren't even considering.

There's also the costs of the academy (sizable overlap with wages), maintenance of facilities, various services the club subscribe to (such as player data), rent.

I do wonder if it's £1.2m in expenses each month though, not £1.2m losses each month. I cannot see how we can still be losing that level of money each month given the amount of cost cutting that's going on - especially in regards to player wages.

Yeah, it doesn't ring true.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

And therein lies the rub - no matter how much you love your employer, if they stop paying you on time and you've got a mortgage to pay and a baby to take care of, you're going to become very pragmatic very quickly.

Portsmouth is a good move for the lad, club on the up, within commuting distance. I hope we've got a sell-on, easy to see him going for a couple of million in a year or two if he stays injury-free.

Surprised Yiadom's still here to be honest, you'd think he's the highest earner and he's an experienced Championship player.

I don't think Yiadom's wage is that high really, I don't know how it compares to the rest of the squad mind. He re-signed when we were under budget restrictions in the Championship, which some sources say are around £3k per week. That's probably one of our highest earners though now to be honest, surprised we can actually afford him.

Budget restrictions in the Champ were about £8k a week.

He'll have never been on a huge salary as we picked him up from Barnsley fairly cheap when they were relegated. They certainly wouldn't have been paying him lots.

But probably still one of the highest remaining earners at the club.

Where have you got £8k a week from? That wasn't the case in summer 2022 was it, possibly the year before but not Ince's first summer?

[YorkshireRoyal99]

Yeah, just checked the last Club Policies accounts thread.

We should get the accounts for 2022/23 in a couple of months, but for 2021/22 our wage bill was still £25m a season.

In theory we were capped at iirc £16m last season, and given we failed to meet our business plan by selling players to fund us, we could potentially have been over.

There is no chance our wage bill this season is a quarter of last season. Half would be a bloody good effort.

Yeah surely not a quarter, half maybe at a push yes, although it has been significantly reduced with the likes of Moore. Puscas, Joao and Meite off the wage bill which would save us just under £4m a year. Ejaria we will have made a decent saving on, plus a few other of the "smaller" contract leavers as well you'd probably be looking at £5m we've saved on wages from just players.

I reckon maybe as of today, with all the other staff redundancies to factor in, it might be half of that of last season.

[WestYorksRoyal]

125k a month for the stadium, still nowhere near making a dent in the 1.2 million A MONTH!! losses

That's over £14 million a year.

Given the salaries listed above, our wage bill, unless I'm mistaken, is not even £4 million a year.

That would mean that even if we sold the entire playing squad, and used Sunday league players instead, we'd still be losing £10 million a year.

Every time we have ever had a discussion about our wage bill it has been wildly underestimated compared to the next set of accounts.

Following PL relegation people said almost every year we must have halved our wage bill because a couple of high profile players left, and yet it was continually between £24m and £44m a year until about the last season or two when the FL really hit us with the financial behaviour bat. Even then it only went down to about £12m - £16m.

Yeah we've taken big slices off it with Moore, Meite and Joao going. But it's the extreme of optimism to think we've cut it as far as some of these figures suggest.

Moore, Joao, Meite and Puscas were reported as being paid £125k per week collectively by the Athletic in September, so that is a saving of £6.5m p.a., by saying goodbye to them, plus Ince and Sarr among others. The same article said our wage bill was now £700k a month; it didn't specify if that was playing staff or all our operations. Since then, Ejaria and Holmes have been moved off the wage bill with McIntyre imminent. Last bit of info is that Pand and Odell told STAR and SBWD that we have the 3rd highest running costs in L1.

No idea where this all leaves us, I'd guess £8m or so p.a., on player wages, but it's the staff costs, academy costs, Bearwood etc that is more of a black box.

[Brogue]

That's over £14 million a year.

Given the salaries listed above, our wage bill, unless I'm mistaken, is not even £4 million a year.

That would mean that even if we sold the entire playing squad, and used Sunday league players instead, we'd still be losing £10 million a year.

Every time we have ever had a discussion about our wage bill it has been wildly underestimated compared to the next set of accounts.

Following PL relegation people said almost every year we must have halved our wage bill because a couple of high profile players left, and yet it was continually between £24m and £44m a year until about the last season or two when the FL really hit us with the financial behaviour bat. Even then it only went down to about £12m - £16m.

Yeah we've taken big slices off it with Moore, Meite and Joao going. But it's the extreme of optimism to think we've cut it as far as some of these figures suggest.

Moore, Joao, Meite and Puscas were reported as being paid £125k per week collectively by the Athletic in September, so that is a saving of £6.5m p.a., by saying goodbye to them, plus Ince and Sarr among others. The same article said our wage bill was now £700k a month; it didn't specify if that was playing staff or all our operations. Since then, Ejaria and Holmes have been moved off the wage bill with McIntyre imminent. Last bit of info is that Pand and Odell told STAR and SBWD that we have the 3rd highest running costs in L1.

No idea where this all leaves us, I'd guess £8m or so p.a., on player wages, but it's the staff costs, academy costs, Bearwood etc that is more of a black box.

Moore, Joao, Meite and Puscas

+ Tom ince who i understand was on big money
+ andy carroll
+shane long
+ junior hoilett
+ scott dann
+ nabby sarr

+ the loan signings of
rahman
hendrick
loum
lumley
casedai
fornah

[Snowflake Royal]

I don't think Yiadom's wage is that high really, I don't know how it compares to the rest of the squad mind. He re-signed when we were under budget restrictions in the Championship, which some sources say are around £3k per week. That's probably one of our highest earners though now to be honest, surprised we can actually afford him.

Budget restrictions in the Champ were about £8k a week.

He'll have never been on a huge salary as we picked him up from Barnsley fairly cheap when they were relegated. They certainly wouldn't have been paying him lots.

But probably still one of the highest remaining earners at the club.

Where have you got £8k a week from? That wasn't the case in summer 2022 was it, possibly the year before but not Ince's first summer?

It was average wage for the Champ, which was about £8k.

£3k a week for 30 players works out to less than £5m a year. There's no way last year's restriction was £3k.

[Snowflake Royal]

Every time we have ever had a discussion about our wage bill it has been wildly underestimated compared to the next set of accounts.

Following PL relegation people said almost every year we must have halved our wage bill because a couple of high profile players left, and yet it was continually between £24m and £44m a year until about the last season or two when the FL really hit us with the financial behaviour bat. Even then it only went down to about £12m - £16m.

Yeah we've taken big slices off it with Moore, Meite and Joao going. But it's the extreme of optimism to think we've cut it as far as some of these figures suggest.

Moore, Joao, Meite and Puscas were reported as being paid £125k per week collectively by the Athletic in September, so that is a saving of £6.5m p.a., by saying goodbye to them, plus Ince and Sarr among others. The same article said our wage bill was now £700k a month; it didn't specify if that was playing staff or all our operations. Since then, Ejaria and Holmes have been moved off the wage bill with McIntyre imminent. Last bit of info is that Pand and Odell told STAR and SBWD that we have the 3rd highest running costs in L1.

No idea where this all leaves us, I'd guess £8m or so p.a., on player wages, but it's the staff costs, academy costs, Bearwood etc that is more of a black box.

Moore, Joao, Meite and Puscas

+ Tom ince who i understand was on big money
+ andy carroll
+shane long
+ junior hoilett
+ scott dann
+ nabby sarr

+ the loan signings of
rahman
hendrick
loum
lumley
casedai
fornah

People always count the exits, never the incomings.

Smith
Wing
Knibbs
Savage
Button
Elliott
Dean
Rushesha

We would have been paying very little for Casadei, Fornah and other loanees.

[blythspartan]

Moore, Joao, Meite and Puscas were reported as being paid £125k per week collectively by the Athletic in September, so that is a saving of £6.5m p.a., by saying goodbye to them, plus Ince and Sarr among others. The same article said our wage bill was now £700k a month; it didn't specify if that was playing staff or all our operations. Since then, Ejaria and Holmes have been moved off the wage bill with McIntyre imminent. Last bit of info is that Pand and Odell told STAR and SBWD that we have the 3rd highest running costs in L1.

No idea where this all leaves us, I'd guess £8m or so p.a., on player wages, but it's the staff costs, academy costs, Bearwood etc that is more of a black box.

Moore, Joao, Meite and Puscas

+ Tom ince who i understand was on big money
+ andy carroll
+shane long
+ junior hoilett
+ scott dann
+ nabby sarr

+ the loan signings of
rahman
hendrick
loum
lumley
casedai
fornah

People always count the exits, never the incomings.

Smith
Wing
Knibbs
Savage
Button
Elliott
Dean
Rushesha

We would have been paying very little for Casadei, Fornah and other loanees.

I can’t see their wages being high, but didn’t we owe a lot of money earlier in the season for unpaid loan fees?

[tmesis]

That's over £14 million a year.

Given the salaries listed above, our wage bill, unless I'm mistaken, is not even £4 million a year.

That would mean that even if we sold the entire playing squad, and used Sunday league players instead, we'd still be losing £10 million a year.

Every time we have ever had a discussion about our wage bill it has been wildly underestimated compared to the next set of accounts.

Following PL relegation people said almost every year we must have halved our wage bill because a couple of high profile players left, and yet it was continually between £24m and £44m a year until about the last season or two when the FL really hit us with the financial behaviour bat. Even then it only went down to about £12m - £16m.

Yeah we've taken big slices off it with Moore, Meite and Joao going. But it's the extreme of optimism to think we've cut it as far as some of these figures suggest.

Moore, Joao, Meite and Puscas were reported as being paid £125k per week collectively by the Athletic in September, so that is a saving of £6.5m p.a., by saying goodbye to them, plus Ince and Sarr among others. The same article said our wage bill was now £700k a month; it didn't specify if that was playing staff or all our operations. Since then, Ejaria and Holmes have been moved off the wage bill with McIntyre imminent. Last bit of info is that Pand and Odell told STAR and SBWD that we have the 3rd highest running costs in L1.

No idea where this all leaves us, I'd guess £8m or so p.a., on player wages, but it's the staff costs, academy costs, Bearwood etc that is more of a black box.

I think that's the bit that needs clarity. Is Bearwood a money pit? Did we maybe spend all of the income from season tickets in the first part of the season, and we are losing £1.2 million a month now, because the only income is away tickets and individual game tickets?

We might never find out the reason, but it seems unbelievable to think we'd need to increase our crowds to 36,000* to break even with this squad.

* £14,000,000 / 23 games / £25 a ticket = 24,000 fans, + 12000 we are already getting.

[WestYorksRoyal]

Every time we have ever had a discussion about our wage bill it has been wildly underestimated compared to the next set of accounts.

Following PL relegation people said almost every year we must have halved our wage bill because a couple of high profile players left, and yet it was continually between £24m and £44m a year until about the last season or two when the FL really hit us with the financial behaviour bat. Even then it only went down to about £12m - £16m.

Yeah we've taken big slices off it with Moore, Meite and Joao going. But it's the extreme of optimism to think we've cut it as far as some of these figures suggest.

Moore, Joao, Meite and Puscas were reported as being paid £125k per week collectively by the Athletic in September, so that is a saving of £6.5m p.a., by saying goodbye to them, plus Ince and Sarr among others. The same article said our wage bill was now £700k a month; it didn't specify if that was playing staff or all our operations. Since then, Ejaria and Holmes have been moved off the wage bill with McIntyre imminent. Last bit of info is that Pand and Odell told STAR and SBWD that we have the 3rd highest running costs in L1.

No idea where this all leaves us, I'd guess £8m or so p.a., on player wages, but it's the staff costs, academy costs, Bearwood etc that is more of a black box.

I think that's the bit that needs clarity. Is Bearwood a money pit? Did we maybe spend all of the income from season tickets in the first part of the season, and we are losing £1.2 million a month now, because the only income is away tickets and individual game tickets?

We might never find out the reason, but it seems unbelievable to think we'd need to increase our crowds to 36,000* to break even with this squad.

* £14,000,000 / 23 games / £25 a ticket = 24,000 fans, + 12000 we are already getting.

We know we were late paying HMRC in July, which should never have happened. That month included the Puscas sale (probably not all up front), season ticket sales and solidarity payments from the PL. Massive alarm bells that we had cashflow problems then. My guess is we had loanee debts to pay off.