The value contrast between Brentford and United

Academic analysis has shown that wage spending is highly correlated with a club’s finishing position over time (with a statistical R² (variance explained) of 90%), as first seen in the seminal “Soccernomics” by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szyminski. Even in a single season (2021/21), we can observe a fairly linear relationship between wages and league position, especially in the bottom half of the table.

Clubs like West Ham, Brighton and Brentford have performed compared to their wage bill. In contras is the extent of Manchester United’s under-performance, as they only finished sixth in the league, despite enjoying the highest wages in England’s top flight.

Manchester United’s £384m wage bill was not only the highest in the 2021/22 Premier League, but actually the highest ever reported in England. Three other clubs paid more than £300m in wages, namely Liverpool £366m, Manchester City £354m and Chelsea £340m.

There was then a big gap of more than £100m to the two North London clubs, Arsenal £212m and Tottenham £209m, so in terms of wages people should really talk about a Big Four, as opposed to a Big Six.

Three clubs had a wage bill below £100m, including two that were relegated (Burnley £92m and Watford £79m). However, lowest of all were Brentford, who got more bang for their buck than any other Premier Club, as they finished in a very impressive 13th place despite wages of just £68m.

The Premier League

By and large, Premier League clubs enjoy wage bills a fair bit higher than their counterparts in the other European leagues, though the two highest clubs overall are actually from France (PSG) and Spain (Real Madrid).

The strength of the Premier League is evident when looking at wage bills, where each English club is paid £180m on average. This was a substantial £83m more than La Liga £97m, while being over twice as much as all the other leagues: the Bundesliga £89m, Serie A £84m and Ligue 1 £75m.

Looking at the figures in England’s second tier, we can see that the top three clubs also reported pretty high wages: Fulham £90m, Bournemouth £61m and Nottingham Forest £59m. This would have placed all of them in the list of Europe’s top 60 clubs with Fulham taking an impressive 38th position. In fact, seven Championship clubs would have been in Europe’s top 80, boosted by a combination of Premier League parachute payments and substantial promotion bonuses.

The leading English clubs generally have pretty good wages to turnover ratios, e.g. four of them are 62% or below, while Bayern Munich also have consistently low figures (53% in 2021/22).

Wage bills are by no means the only driver of performance for clubs, as other factors clearly also play a part, such as good coaching, tactics, team spirit or plain good luck, but it is clearly very important.

In other words, money on its own cannot buy success, but it sure does go a long way in the world of football. The growing financial domination of the Premier League has allowed it to spend much more on wages than other major leagues, thereby recruiting the best players and coaches, which helps explain its recent success in European competitions.

It's no deal say Spurs insiders over Taiwanese takeover

Senior figures at Tottenham Hotspur insisted on Friday that they had not been informed of any deal to sell Daniel Levy’s stake in the club. A business group, Eight Sports Capital — which is said to include a billionaire Taiwanese financier — claimed that it had an agreement in place to buy a 24.99 per cent stake in ENIC, the club’s majority owners, from Levy, who owns 29.88 per cent. The Times has been told Ng Wing Fai and Brooklyn Earick form part of the group, having both been linked previously to potential takeovers of the Premier League club. The Taiwanese businessman, Richard Tsai, is also said to be part of the consortium. He is reportedly worth £7 billion. Last year Earick, the former DJ and tech entrepreneur, was part of an attempted £4.5 billion takeover, which was “unequivocally rejected” by Spurs. An ENIC spokesperson said: “We can confirm that neither ENIC nor THFC are aware of any sale by Daniel Levy’s Family Trust of its minority stake in ENIC, THFC’...

Spurs CEO attacks luxury training base

The Tottenham Hotspur chief executive Vinai Venkatesham has issued a withering assessment of the way the club was run under Daniel Levy, likening the state-of-the-art training centre to a five-star hotel rather than a centre of high performance. Venkatesham was appointed to his role in April 2025, having stepped down as chief executive at Arsenal the previous summer. However, he has said that some aspects of the club were “in a significantly worse state” than he expected. “Our training centre is amazing, one of the best, if not the best in the world,” Venkatesham told BBC Sport. “But when you look around, it looks more like a five-star hotel than it does a performance environment. That will change over the summer. I think there are many areas where the club hasn’t got the right level of expertise.” He explained that the football side of operations was the club’s main downfall when he arrived last year. [One Spurs fan wryly observed that it was like a water company sayi...

Fulham requires big funding from owner

After lengthy delays, Fulham’s shiny, new Riverside Stand has finally opened, creating “a unique Thameside destination with first class facilities for supporters and partners on match days, as well as for the wider community year-round”. This ambitious project has increased Craven Cottage’s capacity by around 4,000 to 29,600, while it has also taken advantage of the club’s fantastic location and wealthy catchment area by including two Michelin star restaurants, a rooftop swimming pool, corporate hospitality and event space, all benefiting from views of the Thames. Chief executive Alistair Mackintosh observed, “Fulham is the sort of club that can have a business class or first class and have fans that turn left on a plane.” Indeed, there is also an exclusive members club – with a football season ticket as an optional extra. It’s fair to say that “the times they are a-changing”, as this is a long way from the traditional pie and a pint. However, in a world where clubs face the tw...

The Political Economy of Football V2

Search This Blog