The clubs wage structure

The wage structure of Celtic is something that is very, very rarely discussed and even almost like the structure is printed in our minds that we simply cannot afford a player over 25-30k/week. But why could we not? Why should we not demand the structure to rise with time as we are getting stronger financially?

Maybe i am wrong, but i remember like it was yesterday that the exact same numbers was circulating around 2008, and we are much more loaded now than ever?

I think that the wage structure is what could possibly help us get to the next level as it would make us much more attractive for a player.

Do we simply don't afford to pay more, or is it because of greed? Im pretty sure its the second option.

 

Best person to ask is Lawwell as He put the wage structure in place.

 

Because the wage bill during MONs time nearly crippled us and the board are * scared of it happening again.

They are risk averse shitebags

 

Best wage structure in Scotland.

 

Your opening sentence concisely described the problem.

Your second sentence concisely describes/illustrates the problem some fans now suffer from.

 

It has to be raised, cautiously..

We can't grow as a club and attract the quality needed to do that, within the current structure..

 

Is probably the same or less than it was 20 years ago

 

The board treat the wages how I treat stuff in the supermarket. Look at prices of stuff and think am I * paying that it's too expensive. Then I realise it's no 2010 anymore and prices have went up in last 15 years or so.

Only thing is our board don't realise this and dig their heels in. *

 

This is my thought as well. Im not saying we should raise it to 60k/week tomorrow, but i just find it strange that the wage bill dont follow the growth of the clubs finances. Its very easy to say "Yeah but look at what happened during the MON era, or to Sevco". Im pretty sure we did not sell players for 30 million per season back then, and the pay for CL was not nearly as much.

 

Fundamentally, it falls in line with my theory of Celtic failing to track in line with football inflation.

As I always say, these questions need to be asked at AGMs not the usual pacification *. The key questions which hold people accountable. Maybe our fan media could get of their * and ask the Q.

 

The structure is definitely an issue but the actual overall spend on wages is fine in my opinion.

Our playing staff combined salaries from last season was £24m. We had 34 players in our squad last season. That works out at around £13,500 a week in an average wage. I know some players will be on as little as £3k a week and some players will be on as high as £30k a week. The reality is, we don't know the definitive salaries for our players, we only know the combined cost each year.

It's been said before in here and I'm going to say it again. When you have a continued cycle of poor recruitment, you get yourself into a vicious, never ending circle of hoarding * players that you can't get rid of because the level in which these players can perform, the teams from that level can't match the wages we have in the squad.

Rodgers has always said he likes to work with a much smaller squad, of 23/24 players. See if you take that £24m and work out the average weekly wage for a squad of 24 players? You get nearly £20k a week. That's a huge difference in terms of what you can/can't attract.

Instead of your top bracket of salaries being slightly under £30k a week, you can maybe push that to being £40k a week. That brings better players, better contracts, better prospects, better progress. The squad size needs to be reduced by 30% and there needs to be a massive shift in the way in which we approach recruitment and talent spotting.

For a team like ours, who relies on finding cheaper players in todays market from obscurer leagues, we can't afford to keep gambling on players who MIGHT have a decent future ahead of them because it's a much bigger risk for us because our money needs to go much farther than teams from the big 5 leagues.

 

Bobo balde was one of the last to get a bumper contract deal back in 2002/03 sort of year.

Memory serves me right, he was on circa 33k and was deemed too much.
Lawwell basically forced WGS not to play him, tried getting him to sign for Birmingham(?) and he refused, claiming he wanted to only play for Celtic. Wasn't about the money etc.
He was bombed out the first team and told to play with the reserves/youth of the time.

I mind one December/January time we had no other choice but to bring him back in for a handful of games and I'm sure we had a great defensive run at that stage with him back. Model professional, was always ready to go, even when we demoted his training.

That was over 20 years ago and today, the only player in that sort of wage is the captain. Always had been the case that McGregor, brown etc was on the 30-35k mark. The next best guys are in 22-27k (CCV) then it drops to 13-17k for the crux of the first team.
3-8k for bench warmers (which is likely what we want Bernardo to accept).

In that same time, our revenue has went from circa 30-35m to 100-110m a year.
We've went from debt, to 80m and more in the bank.

We all laugh at the Hun paying too many of their squad more than even our captain, that their wage bill is too high. But that's for them. Our revenue is much higher than there's, we should be able to offer more.

Weird how revenue goes up, ticket prices go up, food prices at the kiosk goes up, the shirt price definitely goes up, but the wage we offer players stays the same.
The transfer fees we try to offer also stay relatively low.

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Could it be because of FFP? Or are we allowed to pay whatever we want regardless of how * the wages are in the rest of the clubs in the league?

 

I think it probably could cause issues in the future, although I don't think it's what has majorly caused it up until now. We can only spend x amount of income on fees, wages and agents fees. I think wages and fees will start going down in football in general. We've seen the Huns try and shift all their top earners, not signing free transfers from England but young unknowns. I don't think we will hit the same extreme as them but I think anybody getting a 30kpw contract now will already be at the club.

 

Nail on the head. Our strategy in buying cheap and getting players in on lowish wages (5-10k a week) can actually become counter productive when you end up with 5-10 on your books because they were a riskier cheap signing.

That then turns into the same outlay as if you spent the same money and same total wages on 2/3 players for higher transfer fee and higher salary.

Higher cost doesn’t always mean guaranteed higher quality but generally over the piece you will get better players.

Even if we had a 50% hit ratio on these higher cost players. Let’s say you got 2 in each season. Getting rid of 1 is infinitely easier than buying 6 cheaper ones and trying to get rid of 3/4 that don’t make it.

 

Too many fans latch onto the wage structure as if it's some non negotiable when looking to sign a player. Our club is cash rich and have brainwashed many fans into thinking spending any decent money on quality players will bankrupt us. The board are happy to play moneyball, despite Lawwell and co knowing hee haw about what constitutes a good player that will fit into our team.

Every time we are linked to a player its always how much is his fee, what is his wages, how much can we sell him on for. It's a bit of a joke. You rarely hear fans of other clubs spending money on decent players, whereas we have fans who get all excited about some unknown that is reportedly the next big thing who cost £1m and fits the wage structure.

 

I think that the club operate in a strange window of profit/losses when it comes to the general way in which the club is run.

This isn't exact and I'm sure some on here who are more informed when it comes to the financial position of the club would be able to clear it up but I think the club don't FULLY budget for Champions League football. There is a large discrepancy between the money we would make from a season in which we participate in the Champions League, where we receive about £30m and participation in the Europa League, where we probably make around £8m.

However, I think the club generally tries to operate the club in between both, where we make small losses in Europa League campaigns, around £5m or so but don't make the full £30m profit from the Champions League campaigns, we make slightly less, like £23m or something.

Of course, this doesn't include player trading, which we have been successful at but when you do remove the player trading from the accounts, we typically make a small loss in Europa League campaigns and a smaller profit in Champions League campaigns.

 

Bloated squad, has a lot to do with it, deadbeats like McCarthy and Bernabie likely on over 30K a week between them, is hindering us go to next level.
Until we shift a dozen or so of our deadbeats, we wont progress, board are too cagey.

 

We pay an absolute fortune in wages, just all the wrong way.

The structure is all over the shop.

We’re happy to pay 10-12k a week for dross, yet won’t pay a top player an additional 12k a week to entice him to come here.

It’s all a bit silly and counter productive, and you end up with several * players in a squad hoovering up wages for zero contribution, due to our own over pragmatism.

 

Cheaping out on wages is a big part of the reason we can't keep hold of players through their prime.

We'd do a lot better if we were willing to renew player contracts at 23 rather than sell them, then look to sell when they're 25-27 and actually in their prime. Increased wages would likely be made back through increased transfer fees and we'd have better players here as a result.