One of the most common things I read in fan comments or indeed the media now is that Tottenham need to “break their wage structure” to compete. However there are a few things in that statement which I think a lot of people over look. So, lets run through some of the most common accusations or questions I see and try to answer them.
Q. Why do Spurs not pay ‘top’ wages?
Tottenham, like all clubs (don’t get me started on PSG) are bound by rules on finances, these are the FIFA Fair Play rules you might have all heard of. Without getting to complicate in essence the rules state that you can only spend a percentage of your net (key term there, NET) revenue on wages and transfer fee’s.
These rules were designed, we were told, to stop clubs being bought and played with like a toy by billionaires. The best example in the Premier League was Portsmouth. They were bought, they signed players and paid them all massive wages – well above what the club could actually afford – once the owner got bored of this they went to the wall and subsequently faced liquidation off the field while suffering relegation after relegation on it.
Spurs follow these rules to the letter and have since they were implemented and it is because of these rules that chairman Daniel Levy first set out his mission to build a bigger stadium and increase our global fan base. We are now amongst the most supported teams in the world in part largely to strategic partnerships globally and as we all know the stadium is coming.
Once the ground is built our revenue will increase and therefore the amount we can spend on both transfer fees and wages will increase – until then we are restricted by the FFP rules.
Q. Why is that teams with smaller stadiums pay larger wages than us?
Due to the press obsession with reporting on how much football players earn we all know when you see a team get their star man to sign a new deal how much that new deal is worth. The best example I can give is Crystal Palace and Wilfred Zaha. If the associated press are to be believed he is now earning over £100,000 per week at Palace so a question I know many Spurs fans ask is how they can get away with it.
The answer is actually very simple. FFP rules do not apply to a single players wages but an entire squad. Spurs have a superior squad (no offence intended) and therefore have a far higher average wage across the squad. So, for round figures a team can have one player on £100,000 a week and others on £20,000 whereas Spurs have many earning £50,000 – £80,000 per week and a couple at the magic £100,000 mark.
Q. Why when our owner is a billionaire don’t we just find ways around FFP like Man City and Chelsea?
Sadly, the answer to this will likely anger many but simply put Mr Lewis does not want too. Joe Lewis is a billionaire businessman who purchased Spurs from Alan Sugar – he appointed Daniel Levy to run the club with a clear remit of making it a financial success.
Every businessman has different policies in how they run their business; Mr Lewis wants each individual company to be its own stand alone profitable enterprise and he treats Tottenham Hotspur Plc no different to that. What many forget, although Daniel Levy is a Spurs fan he is an employee doing a job. So even if he wanted to blow £250m in one window and spend £300k per player per week on wages he would not be allowed.
Summary.
We as a club are, if you believe spending is the only way to win trophies, are punching well above our weight right now and we are all desperate to take the next step to win things. The stadium is what will allow the wages to increase, the amount we can spend on transfer fees to increase and thus even the odds somewhat with the teams currently above us / we are competing with.
-SJ
