What do Saints' stars earn?

While that news might only be of passing interest to supporters, what will undoubtedly be more fascinating for the St Mary’s faithful to read is how much Saints are paying the striker.

Considering that Lee is nowhere near the first team squad at the moment – he is currently on loan at FC Tokyo, and has been since mid-February – it might come as a surprise to learn Lee is on £18,000 a week at St Mary’s.

That equates to £936,000 a year, for a player who seems to have no immediate future at Saints.

That begs the obvious question: What are the ones who DO have an immediate future earning?

Lee’s salary is a classic indication of how much money is swimming around in the Premier League these days.

Back in the summer of 2004, the Southern Daily Echo carried back page reports when star goalkeeper Antti Niemi signed a new contract.

Niemi’s new deal nine years ago saw his weekly wage rise from around £7,500 a week to around £15,000, plus bonuses.

It is fair to say Niemi’s improved deal saw him placed in the top wage earners at Saints, but probably still behind the likes of James Beattie and Kevin Phillips.

Now £18,000 a week doesn’t even get you a player who is deemed good enough for Saints in today’s cash-rich Premier League, let alone one of the club’s top players.

It also makes you wonder what the rest of Mauricio Pochettino’s squad are banking.

Reports in the Italian media last summer seemed to suggest that record signing Gaston Ramirez, below, was being paid around two million Euros a year net.

That equates to around £1.7m a year, or roughly £34,000 a week take home pay, which means his gross salary could be virtually double that.

Even at £60,000 a week, though, Ramirez’s salary is dwarfed by the mega wages some of the our elite clubs pay out.

And not even just the glamour ones – look at QPR, the worst team in the 2012/13 Premier League. They have been paying Chris Samba £100,000 a week.

On the basis Lee was signed by a club then in the Championship, and Ramirez came in from Italy’s Seria A as a Premier League club’s record signing, it is fair to believe the Uruguayan is being paid around four times what Lee is at the very least.

Is Ramirez’s salary similar to the ones that will be dangled in front of potential new signings in the coming summer months?

It would be fascinating to find out.

A look at the most recently published Saints accounts said that for the first six months of the 2012/13 financial year, all wages paid out represented 59 per cent of the club’s total turnover.

That equates to roughly £19.52m for the six months to the end of 2012.

That would make the annual wage bill – for all staff at Saints, not just the players – in the region of £39m.

In other terms, around £750,000 a week.

But since Saints released their last financial figures, the club have agreed new contracts with some of their star names – which will surely have increased wages in them.

For the financial year 2011/12, the club’s wage bill was £28.7m – which was 102 per cent of turnover, after the removal of £5.3m in promotion bonuses to players and staff.

Can we assume Lee is not in the higher echelon of Saints wage earners?

The likes of Rickie Lambert and Adam Lallana will surely be earning more than Lee, as will obviously Ramirez.

Then there are Jay Rodriguez, Maya Yoshida and Emmanuel Mayuka, who cost Saints around £12m last summer.

Would they be on the same sort of salary as Lee?

Of course, a weekly wage bill of £750,000 for a Premier League club is not an earth-shattering story.

Back in October 2011 a report stated that the average Premier League footballer’s weekly salary was around £22,300 – or £1.16m a year.

We can only presume that figure has gone up since, as the league has shown to be recession-proof.

If that is the case, then Tadanari Lee is earning a below average wage for a Premier League footballer.

The same report said the average Championship player – and Saints were in the second tier at the time of publication – was earning just over £4,000 a week.