Players Wages

there have been a number of posts recently about player wages - mostly taken from poorly researched articles that use Capology website as a basis for their data (which is totally incorrect in most cases).
So I thought I'd go through the HMRC accounts that have been posted for each team and find out what the real picture was.

The last season that (most) teams have posted accounts for is 2022/23. A season in which we finished 21st (due to points deductions elsewhere).

The values are in thousands of £, and here are the stated values in highest to lowest.

Norwich 56448
Burnley 53661
Watford 48726
Sheffield United 48195
WBA 45947
Middlesborough 29625
Stoke 28231
Birmingham City 27628
Luton 27593
Britol 26307
Blackburn 25794
QPR 25408
Sunderland 25296
Swansea 24850
Hull 23651
Wigan 23240
Milwall 22600
Cardiff 22287
Huddersfield 21500
PNE 20993
Coventry 18459
Blackpool 13528
Rotherham 10200
Reading don't appear to have published any yet.

Burnley, Sheffield United and Luton were all promoted that season, so their figures may include significant promotion bonuses for paying staff.

Norwich finished in the bottom half despite having the largest wage bill in the division. They are one of a handful of clubs who have published figures for the 23/24 season and their wage bill is still almost as high (£51842k)

We had the 18th highest wage bill - we were the only side to break down the wage bill into playing and non playing staff - the playing staff bill came to about £14m.

Luton's amount didn't include director remuneration - although that was nil in the case of a lot of clubs.

Wigan, Reading and Blackpool were relegated - Rotherham did well to survive (temporarily at least) with their tiny budget.

Coventry were perhaps the biggest overachievers, finishing 5th, with an exciting young team.

Hilariously Swansea's official accounts made reference to them beating us in the league. I think they were the only team to specifically mention a rival.

That is really interesting - and useful.

It puts Dalman's comments about Cardiff having the 6th or 7th highest Championship wage bill into context.

The context is that he doesn't know what he is talking about.

Although those are 2022-23 accounts, I cannot see any reason to believe Cardiff jumped to neasr the top of the wages table in 2023-24 or this year - not unless Ramsey is on his old Arsenal wages!

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Originally Posted by jon1959

That is really interesting - and useful.

It puts Dalman's comments about Cardiff having the 6th or 7th highest Championship wage bill into context.

The context is that he doesn't know what he is talking about.

Although those are 2022-23 accounts, I cannot see any reason to believe Cardiff jumped to neasr the top of the wages table in 2023-24 or this year - not unless Ramsey is on his old Arsenal wages!

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No one believed that though surely.

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Originally Posted by jon1959

That is really interesting - and useful.

It puts Dalman's comments about Cardiff having the 6th or 7th highest Championship wage bill into context.

The context is that he doesn't know what he is talking about.

Although those are 2022-23 accounts, I cannot see any reason to believe Cardiff jumped to neasr the top of the wages table in 2023-24 or this year - not unless Ramsey is on his old Arsenal wages!

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I'm almost certain Dalman had read an online article that someone had written jut by taking the values off Capology and spinning it out into a very quick (and cheap to produce) news article - unfortunately a lot of this kind of churnalism takes place now, and the journalists involved have no time or inclination to actually fact check the source they are using (as would have happened years ago)

Within a couple of months we should have all the 23/24 season accounts published, so then we will see just how much bollocks that was.

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Originally Posted by Rjk

there have been a number of posts recently about player wages - mostly taken from poorly researched articles that use Capology website as a basis for their data (which is totally incorrect in most cases).
So I thought I'd go through the HMRC accounts that have been posted for each team and find out what the real picture was.

The last season that (most) teams have posted accounts for is 2022/23. A season in which we finished 21st (due to points deductions elsewhere).

The values are in thousands of £, and here are the stated values in highest to lowest.

Norwich 56448
Burnley 53661
Watford 48726
Sheffield United 48195
WBA 45947
Middlesborough 29625
Stoke 28231
Birmingham City 27628
Luton 27593
Britol 26307
Blackburn 25794
QPR 25408
Sunderland 25296
Swansea 24850
Hull 23651
Wigan 23240
Milwall 22600
Cardiff 22287
Huddersfield 21500
PNE 20993
Coventry 18459
Blackpool 13528
Rotherham 10200
Reading don't appear to have published any yet.

Burnley, Sheffield United and Luton were all promoted that season, so their figures may include significant promotion bonuses for paying staff.

Norwich finished in the bottom half despite having the largest wage bill in the division. They are one of a handful of clubs who have published figures for the 23/24 season and their wage bill is still almost as high (£51842k)

We had the 18th highest wage bill - we were the only side to break down the wage bill into playing and non playing staff - the playing staff bill came to about £14m.

Luton's amount didn't include director remuneration - although that was nil in the case of a lot of clubs.

Wigan, Reading and Blackpool were relegated - Rotherham did well to survive (temporarily at least) with their tiny budget.

Coventry were perhaps the biggest overachievers, finishing 5th, with an exciting young team.

Hilariously Swansea's official accounts made reference to them beating us in the league. I think they were the only team to specifically mention a rival.

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excellent work rjk :thumbup:

They probably mentioned us in order to distract their fans from the asset stripping mentioned elsewhere in the document

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Originally Posted by MOZZER2

excellent work rjk :thumbup:

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Seconded. It's a bit like going through your bank statement and realizing the Mrs hasn't spent quite as much as you feared..

Perhaps the FAB can insist on honesty in future meetings as unless there was a massive increase last season the previous wage claim is demonstrably untrue

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Originally Posted by PontBlue

Perhaps the FAB can insist on honesty in future meetings as the previous wage claim is demonstrably untrue

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well - it's unlikely anyway - we don't have all the salary data for 23/24 yet - and most of the ones that we do have don't bear much relation to the figures on Capology.

I don't necessarily think it was dishonesty, more that Dalman had probably seen an article headline and taken it at face value.
You would have liked to have thought that the board of a championship football club would have a fairly good estimation of where their wage bill sits in comparison to their direct rivals, but perhaps not.

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Originally Posted by Rjk

You would have liked to have thought that the board of a championship football club would have a clue what they are doing, but perhaps not.

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Corrected for you :thumbup:

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Originally Posted by jon1959

not unless Ramsey is on his old Arsenal wages!

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My understanding is that Rambos salary is broken into numerous different factors. Basic salary + commercial + appearance + performance benefits + share of league position. This is probably true of most contracts but he’s obviously not benefitting from appearance & performance monies right now.

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Originally Posted by Des Parrot

My understanding is that Rambos salary is broken into numerous different factors. Basic salary + commercial + appearance + performance benefits + share of league position. This is probably true of most contracts but he’s obviously not benefitting from appearance & performance monies right now.

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He probably owes the club money then

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Originally Posted by Des Parrot

My understanding is that Rambos salary is broken into numerous different factors. Basic salary + commercial + appearance + performance benefits + share of league position. This is probably true of most contracts but he’s obviously not benefitting from appearance & performance monies right now.

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I have no idea about Ramsey's salary, but most of the more 'informed speculation' online had him on £20m at Juventus and £6m at Nice.

I assume his last Arsenal salary was something less than Juve. I also assume his current Cardiff salary is a third or less of what he got at Nice. I had the impression at the time that Cardiff were offering a relatively big salary to Ramsey, compared to the rest of our squad, but that it was attractive Championship level - not Premier League or League 1 - and so was not going to bump our wage bill up to top half levels.

I doubt that has happened even with names like Chambers and El Ghazi joining (the latter under very unusual circumstances).

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Originally Posted by jon1959

That is really interesting - and useful.

It puts Dalman's comments about Cardiff having the 6th or 7th highest Championship wage bill into context.

The context is that he doesn't know what he is talking about.

Although those are 2022-23 accounts, I cannot see any reason to believe Cardiff jumped to neasr the top of the wages table in 2023-24 or this year - not unless Ramsey is on his old Arsenal wages!

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Are you suggesting our Chairman doesn't know what he's doing?

Yeh, that checks out.

You have said the following:

Cardiff = 22,287

You stated the values are in thousands of pounds. So what does that figure actually represent and how did you arrive at it?

Fair point. Accuracy would have been better

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Originally Posted by jon1959

That is really interesting - and useful.

It puts Dalman's comments about Cardiff having the 6th or 7th highest Championship wage bill into context.

The context is that he doesn't know what he is talking about.

Although those are 2022-23 accounts, I cannot see any reason to believe Cardiff jumped to neasr the top of the wages table in 2023-24 or this year - not unless Ramsey is on his old Arsenal wages!

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22/23 was the season where we had seventeen I think it was players come in and many of the 2019 signings on big salaries came off the wages. Through that summer, it was widely reported that, despite all of the signings, the object of the exercise was to substantially cut the wage bill.

By contrast, the reporting through the summers of 2023 and 2024 was that the boat was being pushed out on wages. Therefore, while Rjk’s figures suggest the top six wages claims made through that last two years by Mehmet Dalman are unlikely to be true, I’d say we could well be much further up the table than nineteenth now.

By the way, how pathetic is that by Swansea?

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Originally Posted by the other bob wilson

22/23 was the season where we had seventeen I think it was players come in and many of the 2019 signings on big salaries came off the wages. Through that summer, it was widely reported that, despite all of the signings, the object of the exercise was to substantially cut the wage bill.

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Wages apparently dropped from £22.2 million in 2021/22 to £14.2 million in 2022/23 (source: BBC report when the accounts were published in March 2024).

I have no idea what the figures rjk has quoted represent or how they were arrived at, though. What am I missing? What does 22,287 (value in thousands) mean?

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Originally Posted by The Lone Gunman

You have said the following:

Cardiff = 22,287

You stated the values are in thousands of pounds. So what does that figure actually represent and how did you arrive at it?

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Average weekly?

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Originally Posted by goats

Average weekly?

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That, I believe, would be impossible to calculate.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The Lone Gunman

Wages apparently dropped from £22.2 million in 2021/22 to £14.2 million in 2022/23 (source: BBC report when the accounts were published in March 2024).

I have no idea what the figures rjk has quoted represent or how they were arrived at, though. What am I missing? What does 22,287 (value in thousands) mean?

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I assumed it meant £22,287,000 annual salary bill for playing and non-playing staff. Rjk said the accounts gave a figure of approx £14,000,000 for the playing staff - but that Cardiff was unusual (unique) in differentiating between the total wage bill and the squad wage bill. I may be wrong, but that is how I read it.

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Originally Posted by The Lone Gunman

That, I believe, would be impossible to calculate.

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That’s what I thought, how many people are on the wage bill stated?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The Lone Gunman

Wages apparently dropped from £22.2 million in 2021/22 to £14.2 million in 2022/23 (source: BBC report when the accounts were published in March 2024).

I have no idea what the figures rjk has quoted represent or how they were arrived at, though. What am I missing? What does 22,287 (value in thousands) mean?

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That figure of £14 million would represent the sort of drop I would have expected after what happened in the summer of 2022, but would we really be paying other staff £8 million plus?

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Originally Posted by the other bob wilson

That figure of £14 million would represent the sort of drop I would have expected after what happened in the summer of 2022, but would we really be paying other staff £8 million plus?

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I have just found a number online for the total number of Cardiff City FC (non-playing) staff - 305. No idea if that is accurate. If it is it works out as approx £26k per person.

If that includes a majority of lower paid and part time staff - stewards, cleaners, catering, shop etc, as well as a smaller number of higher paid technical, medical, financial staff, and heads of departments, then £8m - even if that includes all the employer costs (NI etc of just under 15%) looks a bit on the high side - but not massively high.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The Lone Gunman

Wages apparently dropped from £22.2 million in 2021/22 to £14.2 million in 2022/23 (source: BBC report when the accounts were published in March 2024).

I have no idea what the figures rjk has quoted represent or how they were arrived at, though. What am I missing? What does 22,287 (value in thousands) mean?

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basically £22.3 million annual wage bill.
of which £14 million ISH was playing staff

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Originally Posted by jon1959

I have just found a number online for the total number of Cardiff City FC (non-playing) staff - 305. No idea if that is accurate. If it is it works out as approx £26k per person.

If that includes a majority of lower paid and part time staff - stewards, cleaners, catering, shop etc, as well as a smaller number of higher paid technical, medical, financial staff, and heads of departments, then £8m - even if that includes all the employer costs (NI etc of just under 15%) looks a bit on the high side - but not massively high.

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possibly included any director renumeration as well

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Originally Posted by The Lone Gunman

Wages apparently dropped from £22.2 million in 2021/22 to £14.2 million in 2022/23 (source: BBC report when the accounts were published in March 2024).

I have no idea what the figures rjk has quoted represent or how they were arrived at, though. What am I missing? What does 22,287 (value in thousands) mean?

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He did not put a comma as you have, so the figure of 22287 thousand would be near enough for your figure of £22.2m

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Originally Posted by jon1959

I have just found a number online for the total number of Cardiff City FC (non-playing) staff - 305. No idea if that is accurate. If it is it works out as approx £26k per person.

If that includes a majority of lower paid and part time staff - stewards, cleaners, catering, shop etc, as well as a smaller number of higher paid technical, medical, financial staff, and heads of departments, then £8m - even if that includes all the employer costs (NI etc of just under 15%) looks a bit on the high side - but not massively high.

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The audited accounts to 31 May 2023 show an average of 52 player employees in the year and 203 total employees.

So average player wage cost was £420k p.a and average for other staff £53k p.a

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Originally Posted by Ninian1962

The audited accounts to 31 May 2023 show an average of 52 player employees in the year and 203 total employees.

So average player wage cost was £420k p.a and average for other staff £53k p.a

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If that is all the non-playing staff (is that people or FTEs?), and if employer contributions are about 15% of the wage bill, that equates to an average non playing staff salary of £45k.

Even if the Finance Director is on a big wedge, and Choo is taking a significant salary from CCFC (is he?) that looks much too high given the likely spread of hours and wages. I'm not convinced by the figures now (of £8m non playing staff costs).

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Originally Posted by jon1959

If that is all the non-playing staff (is that people or FTEs?), and if employer contributions are about 15% of the wage bill, that equates to an average non playing staff salary of £45k.

Even if the Finance Director is on a big wedge, and Choo is taking a significant salary from CCFC (is he?) that looks much too high given the likely spread of hours and wages. I'm not convinced by the figures now (of £8m non playing staff costs).

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I think a lot of clubs didn't include occasional temporary staff like stewards in these figures, just the full time employees.

the managers, medical staff, recruitment teams, admin staff etc will all be on good wages, marketing people etc
it probably adds up quite quickly

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Originally Posted by Rjk

I think a lot of clubs didn't include occasional temporary staff like stewards in these figures, just the full time employees.

the managers, medical staff, recruitment teams, admin staff etc will all be on good wages, marketing people etc
it probably adds up quite quickly

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Is an average salary of £45k across just over 200 full time CCFC staff credible - either staff numbers or salary? It looked reasonable on 305 staff. But if - as Keith is saying - there are only 200 odd the numbers look less so. I don't know but I am now less convinced by the £8m non-playing staff figure than I was.

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Originally Posted by jon1959

Is an average salary of £45k across just over 200 full time CCFC staff credible - either staff numbers or salary? It looked reasonable on 305 staff. But if - as Keith is saying - there are only 200 odd the numbers look less so. I don't know but I am now less convinced by the £8m non-playing staff figure than I was.

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52 players , 154 other staff.

it's all there in the audited accounts

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Originally Posted by Rjk

52 players , 154 other staff.

it's all there in the audited accounts

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OK - but 154 'other staff' at a cost of £8m looks even less credible.

Average salary £45k plus employer contributions. But if it's in the accounts.....