The Deloitte & Touche Report has been issued for season 2006 -2007 and it has some eye-openers for Newcastle fans.
Mike Ashley - he should be dismayed with wage bill
In the season under review (2006-2007), the Newcastle wage bill was the 5th highest in the Premier League. behind those only of Chelsea, Man United, Arsenal and Liverpool, in that order.
However it seems that the top 4 teams actually got some value from their players’ high wages, because they finished in the top 4 in the Premier league in the order of Man United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal.
Newcastle however, even though 5th in the total wage bill, finished in 13th position in the Premier League with 43 points, a full 25 points behind 4th placed Arsenal.
That was both our worst points total ever, and lowest position ever in the Premier League - not good and Glenn Roeder paid the price for a poor season.
We equaled that points total this season, while finishing in 12th position. 
You cannot blame Mike Ashley for wanting to reduce that wage bill, because he’s obviously not getting value for money from his players.
Note that Mike Ashley was not in charge of the club for the season under review (2006-2007), but our wage bill went up £10M for last season, and we improved to 12th place in the league, still on 43 points - again not good.
In 2006-07 Premier League wages costs rose overall by 13% - which were just marginally ahead of an average 11% rise in revenue (or turnover), to £969M. Those revenues are almost certain to have broken the £1B barrier in the season just finished.
Clubs paid an average of £48.5m in wages, with Chelsea having the biggest wage costs at £133M and Watford the smallest at £17.7M. That means Chelsea’s wage bill was more than seven times that of Watford.
Newcastle’s wage costs were £62.5M and that was a 20% rise on the previous season. Since we are told the wage costs this season just completed grew by £10M, we have to believe our wage bill for last season was around £72.5M.
Here are the wage costs for the Premier Clubs, with the positions they finished in the PL for 2006-2007.
Club Wage League Wage Change
Rank Pos Costs
£M
Chelsea 1 2 132.8 17%
Man Utd 2 1 92.3 8%
Arsenal 3 4 89.7 8%
Liverpool 4 3 77.5 13%
Newcastle 5 13 62.5 20%
Prem Lge avg 5.5 10.5 48.5 13%
West Ham 6 15 44.2 41%
Tottenham 7 5 43.8 8%
Aston Villa 8 11 43.2 13%
Everton 9 6 38.4 4%
Middlesbro 10 12 38.3 n/a
Portsmouth 11 9 36.9 49%
Blackburn 12 10 36.7 10%
Man City 13 14 36.4 6%
Fulham 14 16 35,2 17%
Charlton 15 19 34.3 0%
Bolton 16 7 30.7 8%
Reading 17 8 29.8 109%
Wigan 18 17 27.5 34%
Sheffield Utd 19 18 22.4 48%
Watford 20 20 17.6 76%
Notice the big increase in wages for the teams who were promoted to the PL, yet they were still at the bottom of the wage table, and Watford and Sheffield United were still relegated.
Only eight Premier League clubs showed operating profits for the season, namely Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham, Newcastle, Reading, Sheffield United and Watford. So at least we were still able to make a profit, even though the wage costs were so high.
Now that Newcastle United is a privately owned company, it’s unlikely the club will publish their operating results in the future.
However, this brief look at Newcastle’s finances does give us an interesting look into why Mike Ashley and the board want to reduce the wage costs at the club.
Comments welcome.
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58 responses so far ↓
1 Marat18 // May 29, 2008 at 19:23
NUFC underperfoming??? what a surprise!
2 Leo // May 29, 2008 at 19:29
its like a business lesson on my favourite business site, i just finished a degree in the subject damn i cant get away from it lol
3 Leo // May 29, 2008 at 19:30
favourite business site????
damn i am obsessed i meant football site lol
4 nomis_jade // May 29, 2008 at 19:34
I think having the wage stucture may ahve been ok but we have not really had a manager to good enough to match it since Bobby. It really all started with souness with him bringing in owen and luque.
I would not be against NUFC trimming the wage bill at all. Even if it meant that some players dont come to us. We have got to look to the future. We ahve tried the ‘give good players, whatever they want just sign for us’ and it hasnt really worked, so lets try a different tact.
Arshavin and that greek defender tom_toon loves and arda turan and i would be happy!
5 sparetheman // May 29, 2008 at 19:40
I don’t think we really needed a table to tell us we’ve underachieved in the past.
6 Tom // May 29, 2008 at 19:46
Its not a surprise, although we’ve wiped clean our debts of £69.9 million since ashley took over, and we took a fair few of the big earners off the wage bill and replaced them with players who were all on about £20k less than their respective replacement.
I think the 2008 numbers will be lower as we sold alot of big earners.
7 Toon1978 // May 29, 2008 at 19:52
More doom and gloom, we CAN fight for europe next year IF Ashley lets KK make some good signing and thats IF we can get them which i’m sure we can ie Turan(anyone heard anymore about him?), Nicky Shorey,Cuellar,Gomis OR Gomez.
8 Andy1 // May 29, 2008 at 19:54
I bet West Ham’s was a lot higher this season. They signed Dyer, Parker, Bellamy etc.
I don’t really think we can afford to try and cut the wages of or sell our best players. The top players at the club are one of the only things - and the suppoters, that can convince decent players we aren’t just another mid table side.
Many players would love to play with the likes of Owen, I am sure and if we didn’t have these, the club would be harder to sell to the players we are aiming at. Hopefully holding onto top players shows ambition and attracts top young players, like Turan, who won’t purely be coming for the money, and will improve the squad significantly - without increasing the wage bill so much.
Hopefully the youngsters we’ve got already will develop enough so we can throw them in and are able to sell the likes of Smith and Duff if they cannot prove they are worth the wages. But at the moment I feel we need to hang on to all our players really. The squad is small and if we let players go we might need 10 or 11 in to make up the numbers. This would only unsettle the team.
9 Chris F // May 29, 2008 at 19:59
er, Ed, the reports i read said the £10m increase was for the 2006/7 season being reported on, not this season just completed.
i can’t see how it will have gone up £10m in the past year, ok we signed 9 new players, but not all of them will be on ‘mega money’ and we also got rid of a few of our, at the time, high earners in Parker, Solano, Dyer, etc.
10 Toon_Ksk // May 29, 2008 at 20:00
At least we can say that the club is now more stable than before. Shepherd’s way of running the club could have got us busted like Leeds. Fear not, the club is now in good hands.
11 Tom_Toon // May 29, 2008 at 20:01
Duff - 80k
Smith - 60k
Ameobi - 30k
Rozehnal - 40k
Cacapa - 40k
———————————–
Carr - 60k
Ramage - 20k
Troisi - 5k
No problema.
12 The Entertainers // May 29, 2008 at 20:02
Hang on, did’nt we make a profit?????…..The one thing Newcastle have always offered new players is a good wage packet. We cant compete with the top four for prestige, we cant compete with the glamour of the bright lights of London, so we offered bloody good wages. If this attracts the creme de la creme, then we get good football, big crowds and hey presto a profit. This cycle can be said for the opposite, average wages, average footbal, average crowds and guess what……in a time when we are competing with other top teams for a slice of the pie in Asia, Africa and the Americas, do we not have to look attractive on the football front. Speculate to accumulate!
13 Tom_Toon // May 29, 2008 at 20:09
We should offer players top wages but get rid of the currently average or rubbish players on top wages.
14 Marat18 // May 29, 2008 at 20:11
I bet fat sam had pay-cheque as fat as the man himself!
and jail-bird Barton, Smith and Viduka are high earners too.
don’t forget Sam almost doubled size of back-room staff, i.e. one who is responsible for ball travel distance checking, one who is responsible for checking if ball travels at the right height during the matches, etc.
15 toonbully // May 29, 2008 at 20:13
Value for money is a difficult question . ?
1) Firstly we pay them far too much money anyway but £ 62.5 million, say divided by 40 players is about £1.5 million each annually , thats about £135,000 per month , or about
£ 34,000 on average , per player .
2) Considering Michael owen’s on about £110,000 per week , I read somewhere it means others are probably on about £60 - 70 k , and the bottom earners are on £15 - 20 k.
3) When you take into account the average eraner in the North East is on about £15 - 20,000 per annum ITS A LOT OF MONEY.
4) Then these persons pay £40 odd pounds per ticket per match then they should expect value for money .
5) I believe all the players even Michael OWEN and Oba should be on a standard wage of say £20,000 k per week .
6) They should get incentive bonuses to top their wages up ..i.e. goals £2000 each , assists £1000 each , keepers would get £5000 for saving penalty , and £2000 for making goal saving saves , defenders goal saving tackles etc etc…
7) It could all be based on the OPTA ratings which we see so often , and is highly fair .
9) Players would not necessarily want to move to Chelsea and sit their arse on a bench as they would not be getting their incentive bonuses..
10 ) Equally players would not be playing injured as so many have in the past as they would need to get their money , additionally injured players would have their wages reduced in increments the longer they are unfit , an incentive again to get unfit . It could be offset by players taking out insurances against loss of wages..
11) Finally with all these conditions in place you would see real heart and passion back in the game , and supporters who pay so much of their disposable beer money to watch a game getting ….REAL VALUE …
UP THE TOOOOON………..
16 Bill F // May 29, 2008 at 20:23
The fact is is that all of the clubs in the various leagues are paying out far too much on wages and transfers. And this is a worldwide problem. It would need FIFA or someone to put a cap on both. Its doubtful if this will happen so the rich clubs will get richer and every one else will struggle. It just needs one money bags owner to totally screw up the whole system by spending far to much on players and wages. Its not a level playing field and I expect to see a world wide super league at some point and the rest of us will be picking up the crumbs from their table.
Until the revolution that is.
17 GEORDIE69 // May 29, 2008 at 20:31
TOM TOON Ramage 20k ha ha ha ha
Your mad!
18 The Entertainers // May 29, 2008 at 20:33
I completely agree with Bill F. FIFA needs to get involved, for any wage cap etc to be introduced. No one team or even league would be the trail blazer in wage caps. It would leave the individual or league at such a disadvantage to all the others offering higher wages. On a similar note i dont think Owen’s wages are the problem at the Toon. After all he is the countries best striker, captain of our club and when fit! a damn fine player for us. If the going rate for wages are 100,000 pw for the best then give Owen that wage. However its the Smiths, Bartons who are doing nothing for us and WILL be on high wages. That goes for the Marcelinos and Vianas in the past. These are the players that hurt the clubs finances, not the Owens and Martins. Here at Newcastle we are not alone in this problem, just think of Kewell, Saha, Mendieta and a whole bunch at Chelski…..
19 nate dawg // May 29, 2008 at 20:38
carr was on 60k! i think i have just lost all hope in the world
if he can get 60k for doing nothing then wow
20 chuck // May 29, 2008 at 20:58
The owners and teams will have to reach a compromise, A percentage of profit will have to be reserved for the owners and the rest to the players.
In other words a salary cap, whereas a designated lump sum ,equal in amount, will be used by each club to pay player salaries, resulting in an enforced equality of talent.
Naturally all salaries will not be equal, star players receiving more money.
Its a system employed by the NBA in the US
which is acceptable to both parties and has the effect of creating a type of parity in talent levels, meaning the wealthiest clubs can`t out buy the less wealthy teams.
Its time will come when player wages reach more than the owners are willing to pay.
Guaranteeing the owners a defined profit %.
21 Tom_Toon // May 29, 2008 at 21:13
How much was Ramage on then? Im just guessing, i cant see him being on less than 15k.
22 Slam Dunc // May 29, 2008 at 21:13
If you look at this Daily Mail watch, the unofficial communication channel of Newcastle United FC it clearly states our transfer policy.
To sign Europes rising stars and cut the wage bill.
It also points out that manager Kevin Keegan is at odds with this strategy and wants to sign experienced Premier League stars (on high salaries).
So who wins there then, Ashley or Keegan, let me guess !! (or ask Jose Mourinho)
http://www.trophy4toon.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=207.0
23 Rob Kirton // May 29, 2008 at 21:32
2006 - 2007 looks particularly bad. Then again we had Luque picking up 3 guys wages…..
In light of this, the the stalling to date over Taylors new contract makes sense. Yes we should pay him the rate for the job as he is worth hanging onto; however he did try renegotiating only 12 months into a four year deal that he had been happy to sign up to.
Tom_Toon: Ramage may have come very cheap. Taylor is reputedly on 8k per week now. When measured against others, he deserves a rise.
It has always been club policy to pay defenders the least. having said that there are a couple of former centre halves I can think of who maybe should have been playing into club coffers just for the privilege of playing in the prem :0)
24 Marat18 // May 29, 2008 at 21:33
i cannot see ramage being on a huge wage bill, 15-20k/w is the maximum. even if taylor is on 30 (or somethin) atm.
25 Chris F // May 29, 2008 at 21:34
ramage wont have been on more than 10k/w
taylor is supposedly on around 5 or 6k/w still, hence him being after a new deal.
ramage will no way have been on more than 3 times as much.
26 NUFCFAN // May 29, 2008 at 21:35
arent we meant to have a small squad as well!
27 ronaldeano // May 29, 2008 at 21:39
The only reason why this is true is cos ffs was a crap buisnessman and appointed the wrong people to manage the club. He went for the quick fix, and employed managers that were totaly incapable of taking NUFC to the top and keeping them there. Im glad that MA is taking the sensible buisnessmans aproach, but, MA is NOT ffs. He has restructured the club and is curently investing in talented youngsters and that is good, but, we need MA to invest a lot of money into the first team NOW. We have KK at the helm and the only way is up. All that is happening now (with signing youngsters) will all be in vain if we cant compete for Europe next season. We need the quality in NOW Mike!
28 ronaldeano // May 29, 2008 at 21:50
HEY, FREDDY, only a complete buffoon sacks the great Sir Bobby Robson 5 years into the season and appoints Greham Souness and gives him 50 million of the clubs money to WASTE! ( not on Owen tho)! And takes 4 MILLION a YEAR out of the club for wages to pay for hookers, cos nobody elce would go near a fat ginger, greedy theiving so and so like you!
Bad buisness
Bad man
Theif
Conman
I for one am glad to see the fat back of you Freddy!
I hate you.
29 Gordon // May 29, 2008 at 21:56
why do you keep saying Luverpool finished 3rd in the league and Arsenal 4th????
It was obviously the other way around. Forgot about the season already Ed?!
30 tommyy // May 29, 2008 at 22:00
They are on about the season before Gordon.
31 Marat18 // May 29, 2008 at 22:26
!!!Ppg (Toon Army Poland)!!!
!!!Ppg (Toon Army Poland)!!!
!!!Ppg (Toon Army Poland)!!!
I missed you last post in “Newcastle maintain interest in young french blah-blah-blah…”, mate.
we are going to make the same thing - make official fan-club from Russia. and planning to visit SJP in November too (it’s flexible anyway), so it would be great to co-operate.
Don’t know what number, may be 4-5 lads (not a great number, but our web-site is less than one year old, so we are planning to develope well in the future).
btw, I visited you nufc.pl site few times, looks good. and i heard that your were going to make a week-end out on Manure-NUFC match in January. that had to be bloody painfull
P.S. OMG, that would be great to lift the roof of SJP together with fellow Polish Magpies and Geordies!
32 Geordie Nick // May 29, 2008 at 22:43
gordan- hav u forgot how to read and count? 2006-2007 season was last season not the one just gone
33 Przemekdwa // May 29, 2008 at 22:44
Cheers marat.maybe someday we will meet at sjp.if you want check out our site.www.nufc.pl
34 Marat18 // May 29, 2008 at 22:51
Przemekdwa
are you the same person with Ppg (Toon Army Poland)?
I’m desperate to visit sjp this season.
)
yeah, hopefully, we will cheer together for magpies one day (hopefully finally wining some silverware
35 Djr (Toon Army Poland) // May 29, 2008 at 22:58
Hi Marat
could you give me your personal e-mail ?
you said that you visit nufc.pl few times… can you write something about you and another fans NU in Russia on nufc.pl or our forum ? Maybe it will be beginning our partnership - for example journey to NCL together to see SJP and many beautiful places in city
You can see photos from our trip to NCL on forum nufc.pl
Regards mate
PS I know PPG
he was with me and another fans in NCL 3 weeks ago
36 Przemekdwa // May 29, 2008 at 23:06
I am just one of the polish magpies.i dont know exactly who is Ppg.i wasn`t been on sjp yet but i hope i will be on match in next season with toon army poland.
37 Danish_Magpie // May 29, 2008 at 23:28
In my opinion we should try to get in:
Shorey 2.5mm
Crouch 10m
Arashavin 9-11m
Christian Poulsen 8-10m
Upson 8m
Torosidis 4m
= 42.5m
to give us:
GK: Given, Harper, Foster/Krul
RB: Beye, Torosidis
LB: Shorey, Enrique
CB: Upson, Faye, Taylor, Edgar
RCM: (Barton - jail), Milner, Geremi
LCM: N’Zogbia, Emre
DM: Chr. Poulsen, Butt
Deep Striker: Owen, Arashavin
Striker: Oba, Crouch, (Viduka -inj), Carroll
(note: Owen would be ahead of Viduka and Carroll as strikers obviously, I just didn’t want to have two Owen’s in the team. Well I WOULD like that actually but you know what I mean:-))
This implies I would send Lua-Lua and Krul/Foster out on loan and get rid of:
Smith 5m
Duff 1-2m
Ameobi free
Cacapa free
Rozenhal 2m
=8m + lots of saved wages
Net spending of 35-40m including fees, for what I think is a top quality team..
This is assuming we stick with the 4-3-3 btw.
What do you guys think? Fairly realistic and good targets in my opinion..
38 Tom_Toon // May 29, 2008 at 23:30
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/A36655482
There are my ins and outs.
39 Chris F // May 30, 2008 at 0:08
upson is no better than what we have, in all honesty.
shorey would be a good buy, give enrique some competition and keep him on his toes.
i do think crouch would be an excellent buy for us, as he seems to play extremely well with Owen when they play for England together.
Arshavin would be a quality buy, but i can’t see it happening because of how well Zenit have done, i can see him going to a side with european football, if he leaves at all.
poulsen, not so sure, he’s a good player, and we will need a central midfielder or two to compensate for Barton’s incarceration(s) and the fact that Butt is getting on in years, and Emre is *always* injured.
Maybe that’s why we’ve been linked with emana and veloso, though i think we’re living in la-la-land if we think we could get him.
40 Tom_Toon // May 30, 2008 at 0:12
David Luiz for CB. Break the bank for him. If we get him i hope Drogba stay so David Luiz will teach him a lesson, aka ruff him up.
41 Hadrian // May 30, 2008 at 0:23
Modric , dos santos , dunne .
i would have been over the moon with those 3 signings and a left back .
cant belive spurs have wrapped them up before anyone else has got started
42 m. // May 30, 2008 at 0:27
souness + shepperd = a bramble-boumsong alike duo.
43 Oga // May 30, 2008 at 0:55
Dunne looks like he is going to the Spuds I’m afraid. Real stupidity on our part, unless we are considering a better option.
44 The Entertainers // May 30, 2008 at 7:25
Not too upset about Dunne, if the story is true. Although hes good, i think there are plenty of CD of his ilke out there.
45 Paul // May 30, 2008 at 8:34
Ed,
You got a list of all player NUFC have been linked with this transfer window, just think it would be good, how much crap the paper talk
46 James // May 30, 2008 at 8:38
Not too annoyed about Dunne, because it looks like KK wants Cuellar instead and he’s much better, and younger, and Spanish - which will help Jose.
Annoyed we let Spurs steal the march on Dos Santos though - fantastic talent
All the talk this morning in the Spanish press says we are in talks with ETO’O. Now that really would appease the fans! We’d certainly have to offer more than £80K to get him on the books.
47 Djr // May 30, 2008 at 8:40
Marat.
can you give us your e-mail?
48 Hadrian // May 30, 2008 at 8:58
im only bothered about dunne if keegan wanted him .
if the hundreds of reports are true , dunne was one of keegans most wanted .
49 The Entertainers // May 30, 2008 at 9:06
I still think its naive to think we are setting a wage limit on individuals at the club (max 80k pw) i would have thought it would more prevelant amongst the fans if we had a collective wage cap. This we could sign Owen on 112,00k or any of the new talent which gets mentioned daily.
50 steve // May 30, 2008 at 9:48
Lets face it - the only way we can get players to the toon is to offer higher wages than other teams around us (i.e. spurs, villa, everton) we’ve got jack all else to offer
51 Micky Toon // May 30, 2008 at 10:01
BillF, re post 17. I don’t know if your post was an intended tongue in cheek post, but this is exactly what happened in the PL.
If you remember pre Abramovich, Chelsea were going nowhere, and the transfer figures had actually calmed down a bit. I thought the madness of spending £15m on a player (Ok, it was Shearer so I’ll let it slide) were over and done with and we would get back to more sensible transfers.
Not long after the Russians bought Chelsea and it all went mental. Chelsea threatened to price everyone out of the market, so teams like Real Madrid, Inter, ManU all had to up their offers too. We even tried to get in the act when we tried to sign Rooney. Something that was only ever going to happen in Fat Freddy’s dream world. We never had that amount of money and I think Rooney would have gone to ManU for a lot less had we not stepped in.
FIFA have said, today, that they want to implement the 6+5 rule where you can only have six foreign players in your team including subs. Perhaps this will help to bring the prices and wages down.
52 Marat18 // May 30, 2008 at 10:30
Djr,
marat18(-a-t-)email(-d-o-t-)ru
53 Jonny // May 30, 2008 at 10:37
Those figures were from tthe Dark Ages (2006-2007)
since then we have got rid of
moore
bramble
carr
dyer
parker
solano
ramage
Huntingdon
Sibierski
luque
we have only brought barton in on high wages (on a par with parkers)
there is NO WAY that cacapa and roz are on £40k a week each more like £20k at most !
there is also to consider is that as a pecentage of our turnover the wages will also of gone down due to the huge hike in tv money to be added this season.
So this seasons figures will be dramatically different !!!
I dont want a wage cap at the club, we are paying owen over £100k a week - because he is one of the best - its the going rate.
What we must stop is paying the likes of carr, bramble. luque, dyer etc world class wages when they clearly arent world class players
54 Ppg (Toon Army Poland) // May 30, 2008 at 10:48
Marat18- everything is possible if U want something very strong and got a passion.
We make our dreams come true, when we sawSJP 3weeks ago, that was fookin amazing.
We’ll go to SJP in next season for sure mate,so U can write on my email papug_nufc@op.pl or I can conntact U with admin from nufc.pl
Here U can find photos from ours first visit in NCL
http://nufc.pl/forum/viewtopic.php?t=713
55 irish_al // May 30, 2008 at 11:13
valid points jonny, but we will most likely be looking at increased wage costs for martins and taylor
viduka was signed after these figures aswell
n’zogbia signed a new contract last summer, geremi is probably on a fair sum coming from chelsea, and we no smith is on a lot aswell
56 Leo // May 30, 2008 at 11:19
just been thinking and im suprised no one else has noted this. why shouldnt our club offer the players more than any other club, compared to the likes of london surely newcastle football club encounters far less costs, such as taking in account a catering staff i bet in london they are paid twice as much, same with land it will cost less for them to have darsley park
and the fact that we are far away from london means we need to offer higher wages to attract the good players
57 LS // May 30, 2008 at 16:58
It was our joint worst finishing position in the Premier League, and according to another recent report, the Toon had the 6th biggest turnover in the League.
58 Bill F // May 30, 2008 at 17:43
Micky Toon, belated reply so I don’t know if you will see it. But yes it was intended as a past tense remark rather than something that might happen. And obviously alluding to a certain club and its owner.
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