Arsenal
Flawed Wage Structure Pay Big Deliver Little?
Carl
By Eduardo
November 13 2012
Arsenal have the 4th highest wage bill in the league, yet they don't pay the £200K - £250K a week type wages that the top earners at Man Utd, Man City and Chelsea get. It was reported at an AST meeting this week that Arsenal’s wage bill is only 12% lower than Man Utd’s, and we know they have at least a few players on the £200K - £250K a week type wages.
Don’t be fooled, Arsenal pay big
So what has caused this anomaly, well our squad is full of players on far more than the top middle ground wages - £50K - £70K bracket, so much so that our 25 man squad contains at least 4 players (Squillaci, Chamakh, Arshavin, Mannone and possibly Djourou) the club wanted to sell but could not get anyone to take them, even some of them for free(Squillaci), and of course we have a couple out on loan on these sort of wages too(Bendtner and Denilson), they are on loan again because no one would buy them due to their massive wages. Almunia told the press he should have left earlier, but the wages were too good.
Who came up with this policy and why
Well no one has taken outright credit for it (Would you?), but the nearest I can ascertain is that it was Dein, Edelman and Wenger who somehow decided this was the way forward. Both Dein and Edelman give/suggest credit/blame Wenger for it. Regardless of who though it up, it was approved and implemented back around 2005/6. Now most will assume that due to the timing it has to be all part of the shortage of funds due to the move to the Emirates Stadium, but it is my understanding that this had little to do with it as our wage bill actually went up significantly with its introduction and that it was two other factors that had far more impact on this decision being made – Patrick Vieira and the Webster Ruling.
Yes the introduction of more young players into the squad due to lack of transfer funds played its part. However, Wenger has long held the belief that the best way to ensure loyalty from players is to get them young, and indoctrinate them so to speak, in the club. This allegedly will create a team ethos; have them be true friends to each other, paying them all the same thus eliminating rivalries or jealousies. In turn they will repay the club by being loyal and will take into account how well they have been paid overall and not like Vieira and co have their heads turned by the notion of mega wages; love for the club would come first.
Wenger felt betrayed by Vieira’s summer after summer of transfer shenanigans and wanted to ensure the next generation would not let him down in this way (yes we can see it as foolish now but Wenger has always been idealistic). Ally this to the Webster ruling in 2006 where it was deemed that players could buy themselves out of their contract at certain stages, simply by paying a small amount and the worth of their wages. Something along the lines of, if a player earns £1M a year and has two years left on his five year contract he could pay around £2.2M to the club and he was free to move on a Bosman. So Arsenal came up with its solution to this, and it went along the lines of estimate what the player might be worth transfer wise at the point he could buy himself out of his contract and have him on wages high enough that would near enough mean he would have to pay AFC close to his transfer value, or at least enough that would prohibit players using the ruling. Of course this was flawed on many levels, not least being if the player did not reach expected levels we end up as we have paying way over the odds, and of course if players sit till a year out or go to end of contract we are fecked. The Webster ruling also means you have to keep renewing deals well before their expiry date, and so once again you keep rising wages. However Arsenal is not the only club which continually extends contracts early due to the ruling.
So how can the problem be fixed.
When Ivan Gazidis joined Arsenal in late 2008 the wage policy was one of the main things he identified as having potential problems (Not at first he didn’t, I was there when he praised it. Editor), and he has over the last year publicly acknowledged that there are major flaws in it. But as he has also stated, it’s not something that can be easily fixed.
We can’t just tear up contracts, we can not expect players to negotiate contracts downward, and all aspects has to be considered if we are to pay up a players contract – is it worth it, as in how will it leave us in regard to getting in a replacement, what effect on image will it have if you pay up two, three or four players to leave, what effect will it have in future dealings with players, will it have set a precedent that any unhappy squad player will expect his contract paid up too.
I am not sure what to make of the new long term contract to Carl Jenkinson, is it a very bad sign that we are no nearer to a solution to this wage problem, is it a continuation of the policy or the first steps to rectifying it, yes its great that he is extending his contract for five years, but the talked about wages of £32K a week as far as I’m concerned should not be the new starting wage, but that should be the year five wage, but then if you are Jenks why would you not expect, nay demand this sort of money when unwanted and unusable players are on far more, so maybe it can be viewed that as he has only got half what some of the unwanted is on as being a massive step in the right direction.
The Question Remains
It seems most who have deeply looked at our accounts say we have around £80M at most to spend and that without player sales we would have actually made a loss of £16M last year and indeed would have made losses for some time, so giving the need for a couple more signings and how if these were in the £25M-£30M bracket with wages to match that bracket of player, two signings would eat up the entire £80M available, how can AFC sort out the problems with the wage structure, and still sign the couple of top players needed, and increase the wages of our best players.
In my view we have to get rid of these players even if it means a massive hit, pay them up if there is no way of getting them to jump ship, although I think a first step would have been to tell them there would be no loan deal and no being part of the 25 man squad, only playing and training with reserve squad for any of these players not able to agree a transfer or loan deal where the other club pay the full wages.
Arsenal need a more realistic wage structure where real talent is rewarded, and potential gets the same wage as those at any other club, not a premium. Is the Jenkinson deal the right first step, or is it meaningless until the club gets the unwanted players on high wages off the pay roll one way or another?
Has the club got the right wage structure, or is it as inefficient as critics are now beginning to say, or are there other solutions?
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012:11:17:20:32:55 by Padre Pio.
But I suppose that's because he could have been an important player for us. If we had done it with squillaci, Almunia or chamakh I would have no doubt it would have been the right thing to do.
Also it's funny how the players who seem to get on best in our squad are the ones who have been bought in their late 20's. Arteta, cazorla, podolski, vermaelen and per haven't been indoctrinated but they seem to genuinely be friends.
The fact is the club deliberately underpay its best players and overpay its most inferior players.
Anyone with a brain or the ability to be objective can see why.
This insures a constant flow of top transfers out of the Club in search or more silver and silverware, while eliminating the possibility of signing players or similar proven quality to replace let alone join such players.
In other words we will make big sales and have no chance of making similar buys regularly each year which of course makes the Club bigger unspent profits which just happen to increase the value of the investors shares as it does.
Of course I am sure that is all merely coincidental just as every major shareholder selling out to either Stan kroenke or Alisher Usmanov was all some wird confluence of fate no one at the Club had ever considered until they actually did it. Okayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.........
*sigh*
*Signing Ozil is a signing Bergkamp type moment for Arsenal. It changes things utterly.*
if it had a aother name on it you would have agreed
"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.
Indeed it makes a frankly misleading conclusion about our wage structure by saying "Don't be fooled-Arsenal pay big" That sounds little or no different from the misleading quotes that Dan Fiszman made to the same effect in 2007.
It also assumes as fact claims i do not believe any author could present as fact about the motivations behind all of this. I would remind you that the Author has called those who were paid to investiigate Colegate by the FA liars for not supporting the claim he asserted as fact that the ojnly reason Ashley Cole was not re-sign was his agent trying to extort an extra 5K a week for himself from the Club which simple primary school math proves or in this case disproves any such claim on this author's part.
So is it unreasonable to question his claims here if they justify being questioned historically as well as in this piece? And let's be clear given that the claims here are questionable I can assure you that regardless of who wrote the piece i would raise the same questions because frankly it's fair to raise them. It's not like I am false calling him a one-note WUM or anything unfair or unjustified like that after all
The refusal to spend big on the transfer market is another issue altogether.
"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.
Quote:Padre Pio
I coined the headline, it might confuse some, if it does i apologise. Pay Big was meant to mean Arsenal spend a lot on wages, at one stage the total wages were only 12% behind Man U's. You pointed out in your own article that Campbell and Henry got high wages, but the point is Arsenal have got a big wage bill, so its the structure that is the main issue.
The refusal to spend big on the transfer market is another issue altogether.
There is no need to apologize to anyone for an honest mistake commendable as that is though I will apologize too if you feel i dismissed the point that the wage structure was the problem, as i really don't at all. I think it is the main problem in fact.
Fair enough then I retract that though I agree had you made reference to make no mistake we pay big - for the players earning the least I might agree.
But I will add this - it is not another issue altogether, because the fact the fact is wages and transfer fees are consistently tied together on top players. That is not as some - including Arsene Wenger - have suggested a scientific absolute but it is a key factor..
Player acquisition in all but limited instances is a two-tiered process - agreeing a a transfer fee giving the right to try and sign a player from another club, and then agreeing wages to actually sign the player are both required to complete the transfer successfully.
No player has to go to a club they do not want to if they are willing to risk sitting out a year or longer or the heat they would take inside their own club for not accepting a transfer the club had arranged.
The fact iis we could could offer Barca a quarter of a billion pounds for Leo Messi when City and Chelsea drop out at 150 million, but if City or Chelsea say we can pay you 500 K a week while we offer 150K a week personal terms the only way we sign Messi then is if Barca offered him say a third of that extra 100 million they made as a bonus to sign with us. Especially given the current state of this club and team.
So this idea that the problems in our wage structure don't have a whole lot to do with our problems on transfer spending is just really really wrong.
But let's be clear - that does not mean we have to match City or chelsea or even United pound-for-pound is my whole point about paying Henry and Campbell as we did is that we can pay our best players better which makes keeping them easier and signing similar players to them much easier especially if because of these players you win more silverware on top of that.
We simply have to spend smarter and pay smarter. And if we pay smarter spending smarter will be that much easier.
i agree with that, and I think that is part of what the article is about, the need for more efficiency of the wage structure.
"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.
If I have anycomplaint its agin more of this coicidnece theory-level thinking.
This was just inncoent naivety and idealism on the manager's part that the Club just happily backed and paid no attention to its success or failure.
I'm sorry but I think there are 400 million or so pieces of evidence contradicting that hypothesis. I don't think this was just another accident that worked out remarkably well for some at the Club in spite of their unawareness of its failing.
*Signing Ozil is a signing Bergkamp type moment for Arsenal. It changes things utterly.*
It always strikes me that this could be behind some of the clubs stranger wage situations and indeed refusal to raise the wages of certain indispensible players but nobody ever seems to mention it.
Set an example to the rest of the squad that if you really deliver, you get market rate, if not then you're off.
Wenger's too soft on the rubbish players and doesn't reward exceptional contribution enough.
The fact is that RVP is a superstarm the best striker in the world and those kinds of players are what win you trophies.
*Signing Ozil is a signing Bergkamp type moment for Arsenal. It changes things utterly.*
*Signing Ozil is a signing Bergkamp type moment for Arsenal. It changes things utterly.*
There was other things used in the past that are now against the rules such as the interest free loan, this was clamped down upon due to the fact most players put the said loan in an offshore account whereby he would not pay any tax on it at all and the inland revenue took exception to this and got the practice outlawed.
*Signing Ozil is a signing Bergkamp type moment for Arsenal. It changes things utterly.*
Again sounds like either more excuse making or very poor policy or very cynical policy meant by the Club to mis-lead supporters.
I think this is where the lack of clarity and candor gets us. You simply cannot pretend the Club did not benefit financially and there fore its shareholders saw no financial benefit through these new wage policies especially when the Club hides behind frankly a veiel of secrecy and sellectively leaked information meant to advance the Club's position.
Quote:eduardo
Yes celine many of our players have clauses that would mean them getting pay rise if someone else gets higher wages. Its not new its been a standard clause in many of our players contracts for decades. I remember even as long ago as pre wenger it was used. Several of our senior players celebrated when bergkamp signed as it meant they got wage rises. Its one of the reasons why signing bonus and loyalty bonus used to top up wages as these don't trigger the clause. Its the same at a lot of clubs.
Of course couldn't that - if correct - simply be intended to undemine revising the wage structure in any way that would truly fix the problem?
I was thinking about this the other day after I left and it seems that is the perfect excuse not to try a more reasoned and sensible wage structure that would not force us to sell our very best players and make buying replacements of comparable proven quality frankly impossible, never mind return to the pre-2005 team-building policy.
How clever - the wage strcuture covers us making huge profits in the transfer window, and these apparent or alleged wage increase clauses cover the wage structure and prevent anyone correcting it as we know simply has to happen before anything else can.
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