Liverpool FC Forum

[made in UK]

On the point about wages, I'm pretty sure that over the past five years or so our wage bill has been on average about £7-10m less than Arsenal's, a further £5-10m less than the Manc's and about £30-50m less than Chelsea's.

I'm not doing a Tompkins or anything, but that's a notable difference that can only have put as at a disadvantage in the transfer market. I wouldn't expect the situation to be that much different now, even accounting for the presumed net increase arising out of the Johnson/Aquilani/Kyrgiakos acquisitions (+ contract extensions) and the departures of Alonso/Arbeloa/Hyypia/Keane.

Source.

[LFC2007]

BBC/Deloitte/Telegraph/Guardian... etc

[made in UK]

Exact reference?

[LFC2007]

Exact reference?

[made in UK]

Exact reference?

Then your statement holds no validity.

[LFC2007]

Exact reference?

Then your statement holds no validity.

For it to hold valid, only one of those teams - say, Chelsea, because they've spent more than anyone else - needs to have spent more on wages than we have over the past five seasons. As that tends to be common knowledge among most Liverpool fans who take more than just a passing interest in football, one would have assumed that on a internet forum dedicated to all things Liverpool and most things football, it wouldn't be possible to ecounter someone willing to question the validity of my statement. That is to say, if you are genuinely questioning whether or not Chelsea have spent considerably more on wages over the past five seasons than we - Liverpool - have, you must either be an imbecile, a hermit, or a WUM.

Further still, only a complete idiot would be unable to find the near-exact information from the sources provided; and since I was NOT writing an academic article, whether I posted the exact link or not is neither here nor there.

[made in UK]

Then without a source your pie in the sky statement is bollox really. Considering this thread has many posters who find statements from all over the web that do not correlate with one anothers about our 'net spend'. It would be appropriate to find out whether your source (and that is of course if you had one) is/was reliable about our wages, obviously not though.

'Passing fan' thats a bit rich coming from LFC2007

[bigmick]

You said "50 million more per season" for Chelsea earlier LFC, that sounds a bit high. That would ten players on 100K per week extra than what we pay. It might be the case, but it sounds a tad high to me.

I still think it's something of a desperate measure of how a team should perform (not saying you brought it up in the first place) as you'd be doing the calculation before each match. Therefore we should beat Sunderland, Fulham etc. I suppose that it would also excuse failing in Europe if indeed we do, as the weaker pound against the Euro means that in real terms we are paying less wages etc etc.

I don't think anybody would pretend though that if a team can pay 50 million quid a season more in wages that it's not an advantage. Equally, if you can go on  Man City style spending spree it helps, but whichever way you look at it we came very close last season. Our challengers with the exception of Arsenal haven't massively improved, so from where I'm saying we ought to be able to make a better fist of it than we are.

[fivecups]

We are not doing well this season for a couple of reasons:

The main one is that we sold Alonso and didn't have a replacement for him who was fit and able to play. Lucas couldn't fill the role as we now know, and this has had a massive effect on how well we've gone.

Our pre season wasn't intense enough IMHO, and it took us a few games to properly get started.

The zonal system wasn't properly honed, and we looked dodgy from set pieces.

It has taken and is still taking us time to find our style. Are we going to expansive or reactive, what is our tempo?

We have been a bit unlucky.

We have had some injuries.

We have had the occasional odd selection.

We didn't sufficiently cover certain positions on the pitch in case of injury.



They are the reasons why we're struggling, right there.

Some excellent posts. I think everyone is trying to come to terms with how we've collapsed from a title challenging side to a '6 losses in 7 games side' in the space of 5 months. It's incredible really. I think the reasons above are fairly spot on. Some of those were avoidable, some weren't.

In terms of transfers the biggest mistake, for me, was letting Sami go, Scottbot particularly, mentioned it at the time. It was entirely avoidable and unneccesary and we could have really used him this season.

I think when we are in a crises it's natural to reevaluate the club as a whole, that's certainly what I've been doing recently. I know what I want, a club that consistently challenges and wins major honours. But is that a reasonable expectation to have? Where should we rank compared to other clubs in the Premier League? Did we overachieve last year or are we underachieving now? Or are we somewhere in between? Are we one of the biggest clubs in the world or a tier below that? What parameters do we use to answer that question? What objective sources do we have to get true answers to those parameters?

At the minute I feel I need a better picture of our clubs size to decide what are reasonable expectations to have. As RBG said in another thread we have no God give right to rise to the very top of world football again, simply wanting it isn't going to make it happen.

So what measures would be useful to compare us to other clubs?

I'd like to have objective numbers for all these for us and other clubs:


- Overall financial turnover
- Specific income: matchday, sponsorship, tv, competition success
- Transfer spending - gross, net
- Debt
- Outgoings - including % turnover in wages, overall wages
- Average match attendance
- Overall global fanbase
- Historical success

I'm sure there are other measures I haven't thought of. A lot of this information is available, theres a good thread on RAWK, and Deloitte produces an Annual review of football finance and an annual football money league. Robust, objective information will always be a season out of date, but if we're assessing and comparing the club on a medium term basis it still remains highly relevant.

Some of this information is in this thread, I'd like to compile some more of it here over the next while.

[fivecups]

You said "50 million more per season" for Chelsea earlier LFC, that sounds a bit high. That would ten players on 100K per week extra than what we pay. It might be the case, but it sounds a tad high to me.

I still think it's something of a desperate measure of how a team should perform (not saying you brought it up in the first place) as you'd be doing the calculation before each match. Therefore we should beat Sunderland, Fulham etc. I suppose that it would also excuse failing in Europe if indeed we do, as the weaker pound against the Euro means that in real terms we are paying less wages etc etc.

I don't think anybody would pretend though that if a team can pay 50 million quid a season more in wages that it's not an advantage. Equally, if you can go on  Man City style spending spree it helps, but whichever way you look at it we came very close last season. Our challengers with the exception of Arsenal haven't massively improved, so from where I'm saying we ought to be able to make a better fist of it than we are.

Direct quote from the last Deloitte ARFF highlights pdf:

'Chelsea, with wage costs of £172m remains the
highest spender by some distance, over £50m above
the next highest club, Manchester United, who spent
£121m. The other top five wages spenders in 2007/08
are, for the sixth season in succession, Arsenal £101m,
Liverpool £90m, and Newcastle United £75m.'

I'm sure there has been some change but it is an incredible difference between Chelsea and the rest.

[fivecups]

World's wealthiest clubs by revenue 2007/8:

1) Real Madrid: £289.6m
2) Man Utd: £257.1m
3) Barcelona: £244.4m
4) Bayern Munich: £233.8m
5) Chelsea: £212.9m
6) Arsenal: £209.3m
7) Liverpool: £167m
8) AC Milan: £165.8m
9) AS Roma: £138.9m
10) Inter Milan: £136.9m
Source: Deloitte: 2007/8

Premiership only:
1) Man Utd: £257.1m
2) Chelsea: £212.9m (83% top PL earners)
3) Arsenal: £209.3m (81%)
4) Liverpool: £167m (65%)

Source: Deloitte: 2007/8

[fivecups]

From ttnbd on RAWK:

Benchmarking against our rivals

With this I aim to show how the top 4 compare in the revenue, core costs (player amortisation and wages) and transfer expenditure stakes.

The figures relate to the season 2006/07 and are taken from the published accounts of all 4 clubs.  There is a slight difference in accounting reference dates but I believe these are insignificant.  The figures also relate to footballing activity only (arsenal have a property development going on at present, chelsea have the hotel etc)

(in £000s unless stated)
          Liverpool Man United Chelsea Arsenal
Turnover   159,052 256,239 199,339 207,723
Media    68,358 90,723 Not Avail 68,360
Matchday   39,215 101,468 Not Avail 94,580
Commercial   49,849 64,048 Not Avail 44,311
Amortisation of Player Registrations 32,497 35,481 57,281 21,757
Staff Wages 89,729 121,080 171,620 101,302
Staff Wages as % of Turnover 56% 47% 86% 49%
Gross Transfer Expenditure 69,966 14,338 80,727 27,490
Net Transfer Expenditure 40,226 (13,254) 48,106 (13,707)


It must be noted that the following events occurred after the balance sheet dates.

Manchester United bought players for fees totalling £34.4m, with £1.6m recouped from sales. Contingent Liabilities on transfers stand at £14.8m

The figures for Chelsea only relate to football activites, hotel revenues are excluded to make the figures more comparable.  The Staff Wages includes termination costs of £23.1m

Chelsea sold players for a profit of £8.5m since the balance sheet date. Contingent Liabilities on transfers stand at £3.7m

The figures for Arsenal are for footballing activities only.  Since the year end Arsenal received £1.5m net on transfer fees.  Contingent Asset/Liabilities on transfers stand at £6.3m/£12.3m respectively

The rest of his financial summary on our club specifically can be read
here

[made in UK]

Thanks for going to the effort fivecups of providing those stats.

[fivecups]

Forbes 'soccer' team valuations 2009:

1. Manchester United $1.8
2. Arsenal $1.2
3. Liverpool $1.0
4. Chelsea $0.8

Forbes Top 10 Most Valuable Sports Franchises

(Values in Billions)

1. Manchester United $1.8
2. Dallas Cowboys $1.6
3. Washington Redskins $1.5
4. New England Patriots $1.32
5. New York Yankees $1.3
6. Real Madrid $1.29
7. Arsenal $1.2
8. New York Giants $1.18
9. New York Jets $1.17
10. Houston Texans $1.17

Value of team based on past transactions and current stadium deals (unless new stadium is pending) without deduction for debt.

Sources: Deloitte and Touche; company documents; Forbes

[fivecups]

Updated Squad values according to Owzat

£232m Chelsea
£194m Man Utd
£176m Tottenham
£142m Man City
£132m Liverpool

Chelsea : I have Shevchenko down as belonging to Chelsea, this isn't confirmed by wikipedia as some sources claim it is a loan (SS, s*n) and others don't see it that way. Also depends what figure you believe was paid for Cashley

Man Utd : I gather the Tevez fee is made up of loan installments to be taken off the £30m fee reported, whether to add that or not is debatable - especially given he's on loan still and they may not even sign him, if we're going to make loans have values then should we take off loaned out players? Talk about selective. I've now added the two Serbian kids at reported £16.3m combined. Again, you don't know if that is initial, with add-ons etc

Tottenham : according to wikipedia, Keane was bought back for £12m with it rising to £19m including add-ons. I know Dos Santos also had about £4m in add-ons which is about £11m of the difference between my figure and Tomkins.

LIVERPOOL : has Tomkins taken Pennant off our squad? That is one plausible explanation for the difference, but that would contradict his own rules surely?


Any which way, whether my figures match Tomkins' exactly or not, the list puts Liverpool where a lot of people want them to be - below others for ready made excuses. What it doesn't do is explain how sides that are below us in spending are right up with us in the league not proportionate points behind, and how Arsenal have finished above us all too often.

Owzat's squad values in March 2009. Would be nice to see an updated version if he's about, otherwise I'll try and do it later.