Debunking the Myth of a Salary 'cap' at Spurs

[dirtydave]

First posted by Devonian on COYS back in Jan 2008 (25-01-08)

The continuing talk of a salary cap is a nonsense – there is no cap on individual salaries – it is controlled by a wage budget based on the whole footballing squads.

Levy can go to £51.5 million this year, without any sanction from Lewis, and as we currently stand at £43.8 million then that means we can afford to pay NEW players a total of £7.7 million (and that does not include players leaving) – that equates to an extra £148,000 per week on wages. That can be distributed any which way Levy wants and if it needs to pay out £70k pw on top class players then so be it.

If we really need to push the boat out then (with Lewis sanction) we can go to £56.65 million which gives us an extra £12.85 million on wages to play with or an extra £247,000 pw.

Just because we can spend that level of money does not mean that we will if Levy does not think they are worth the money – he busted the overall budget for Davids so all this talk about players not being able to come to us due to our not paying the necessary wages is nonsense.

The only time, since Tavistock Group has owned us, that we failed to match wages was when we went for Duff and Parker – we were already running at 57% of T/O on a much reduced T/O and Levy would have gone to 60% but both of those players were on ridiculous wages (as all Chelski players are) and so we passed.

I can assure everybody that EVERY Club in Europe (including Chelski) are trying to REDUCE wages and every Chairman is in agreement. The THFC business model is seen as the perfect model to adopt by most European Clubs.

If we do not get a player it will not be because we could not afford to pay the wages – we might not agree with their demands which is a totally different issue – that said I do not believe a word of what the Daily Mail says and if this Tiago guy is somebody that Ramos wants then Levy will get him.

There are so many postings on many threads which seem to make us out as cheapskates – we are second only to Chelski spending in the transfer market since Levy came in – 6th highest payers in the PL and trading at a profit – we have got the £20 million required for the new training centre already in the Accounts – we have record profits - oh and we gave £4 million to charity last year.

Do you think that we got that way by Levy giving in to mercenaries? Levy is the best negotiator I have ever known so have faith in the guy.

And for those who say that Levy is the highest paid man at THFC, you could not be more wrong if you tried to be – his exact wage is £18,269.23 per week.

And for those that think that Kemsley was robbing the Club when he was here – his last year salary was exactly £0 – some might say that he was overpaid at that but those are the facts.

 

[mike_l]

I always thought that a big issue was that if someone was signed and given a massive wage (80-100k per week), then the current high earners would want parity, there was even talk of a clause in Keane's contract that he would have parity with the highest earner iirc.

Regardless, there would likely be disconetment amongst the established players if this were to happen.

 

[animal]

Interesting read, but when did you write it?? Did you accidentally post it today?!

 

[Coyboy]

Nice, but does anyone else have a recollection of something more recent that Jan 08 where Devonian was much more critical of Levy? Maybe his ITK was tinted with Ramosmania.

 

[dirtydave]

Its being discussed in the transfer rumours forum and needed to be moved here for further discussion. Was first posted 25-01-08.

 

[TheWaddler]

Nice, but does anyone else have a recollection of something more recent that Jan 08 where Devonian was much more critical of Levy? Maybe his ITK was tinted with Ramosmania.

Devonian wasn't ITK. Just a shareholder with a lots of business sense and time to write long thorough posts. Some of what he wrote was pure b/s by the way, but most was sensible, and the salary cap stuff posted above makes a lot of sense.

He is no longer on COYS but now posts on the official Spurs MB apparently under a different username.

 

[dirtydave]

Devonian wasn't ITK. Just a shareholder with a lots of business sense and time to write long thorough posts. Some of what he wrote was pure b/s by the way, but most was sensible, and the salary cap stuff posted above makes a lot of sense.

He is no longer on COYS but now posts on the official Spurs MB apparently under a different username.

Thanks for the update.

 

[Bobishism]

You could find that all out in 5 minutes on FM2008

 

[philbcn]

You could find that all out in 5 minutes on FM2008

or 3 minutes by reading the post, and without having to buy FM2008 to get the info.

Thanks for the original post, interesting reading.

 

[lifeof...]

I was one of them (poss the main one) as it interest me, I think our salary structure, is part of what holds us back.

Looking at the figures quoted,

Based on 51.5 mill for a years worth salary
On 25 players this would give the average weekly wage of about 40k a week.
This obviously doesn’t also include win, games played, etc etc bonuses.
I wouldn’t have thought any of the main starting 11 were on less than 20k per week

If this is the style of system used, then obviously there would be several years worth of salary projections, and thus swallow a lot of the budget per year.

Potential salary gain would come from extra money added from the board, perhaps through players leaving etc

So it seems to me, if we do want to pay the 100k per week, which it looks like we need to pay to the “star” player. We would need a trimmed down squad. (Selling the those that are on the around or less than 20k per week) Ok, so it is feasible.

Obviously the other main part is not just having the money available, but the decision makers, agreeing to pay “the amount”

What I haven’t seen (which doesn’t make it true) is Spurs signing a 100k a week player.

If we had offered something like 100k, do you really think Barry would have gone to man c? I honestly don’t.

Do you honestly think, the majority of (top) players we have been “itk linked with will come to Spurs, if they get offered a lot more money elsewhere? I don’t. And there not been mercenary. They are being professional sportsman.


It isn’t just about signing players; it’s also about keeping the “stars”
If Modric Keeps growing, and Lennon learns to cross, by the end of next year (hell maybe even Jan) Clubs will be in for them offering the 100 odd k figures. Will we? Our recent history suggest not.

Whilst we have to accept we can’t buy the Ronaldo or kaka of this world. When we find and create a gem, we need to keep them. And in this current footballing world, you have to keep on paying them

 

[maldini]

IMO it's not as simple as paying a star player (be it current squad or incoming) £100k and that's the end of it. When we pay someone £100k per week, what will the other players who used to be the top earners do? Will they be content enough not to want more? Or will they now ask to be matched with the new top earner? It has happened at many clubs before including Man Utd. We will be giving out a lot more than just that 100k...

 

[SpurSince57]

I'd say it depends on who the player is. Offering Barry £100k a week (which still wouldn't have been enough) would certainly have got our current top earners demanding parity. We might get away with offering RvN that, though.

 

[Legend10]

For a club like Spurs to even consider paying a player like Gareth barry 100k per week would be ridiculous.

Every very decent player in our squad would be pissed off and rightly so, Barry is far from special and good holding midfield players are far from rare.

You can pay people like him 100k+ if you're playing rubbish like FM, which unfortunately is exactly what City and the Chavs are doing, playing real life FM.

For clubs like Spurs affordability and sustainability without being shy has to be the key. I think in the current climate the club has done remarkably well to get and have the players that we have whilst maintaining some sort of order in a business sector which is getting increasingly out of control.

Personally I would like to see Platini and other senior figures within the game actually stop threatening and start to action some points to bring some sort of sembelence of order back in to football, after all the Champions League has been a virtual nail in to the coffin of so many great clubs and their supporters. UEFA and in this country SKY are responsible for ruining top flight football and taking the theatre of the game away from the real fans of clubs like Spurs, Everton, Villa, Boro, Newcastle, Sunderland and West Ham etc as the top end of mediocrity is a massive achievement for these clubs.

The best thing for the game would be for one of the so called big clubs to go bust! I for one pray it happens.

 

[norflondon]

As others have said on here, we may not have a salary cap on any individual player but placing a cap on squad spend inevitably results in caps on indivudal players. I think Arsenal had a system a number of years ago whereby 4 or 5 of the squad had contractual clauses linking their pay to that of the top earner. So giving Player X a new contract increased the wage bill by a factor again as the rest of the squad jumped up in line.

I don't believe being a professional sportsman results in taking the top salary on offer. I'm a professional (though not a sportsman) and have been offered a significant increase in pay to move employers several times. I have on each occasion declined due to the enjoyment I have in my current role, confidence that I will continue to prgress my career with the current employer, family reasons etc. If it really is all down to $$$ then that individual is not a man I want on my side. The current tales surrounding Eto'o prove this point to me. He has managed to push even Man City to the brink with outlandish sign-on fees on top of a monstrous contract. Would you really want a man playing for you who was only there because of a £12m bung when the £16m annual salary wasn't enough?

Really?

 

[Luka Lennon]

that is a salary cap though

51.5 mil would be our salary cap imposed by Levy