How to save £3m in wages (From Daily Echo)
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How to save £3m in wages
in Sport
Claus Lundekvam
SAINTS saved around £3m on their salary bill by releasing, selling or loaning out ten players in the summer of 2008.
The five released were Alex Ostlund, Darren Powell, Inigo Idiakez, Jermaine Wright and Mario Licka.
Veteran defenders Claus Lundekvam and Chris Makin retired and so were also released.
Jhon Viafara started preseason under Jan Poortvliet but soon had his contract cancelled.
Youssef Safri, who Saints were keen to keep, was sold to Qatar Sports Club for personal reasons while Andrew Davies was sold to Stoke for around £1.3m.
Those 10 players departing would easily have saved £2m plus a year in wages.
That’s only an average of £4,000 a week for each of them, which is a very conservative element.
It is known that Lundekvam was one of the higher wage earners in the squad and Davies was on around £10,000 a week.
In addition, Idiakez and Viafara would almost certainly have been on around £5,000 a week.
Grzegorz Rasiak and his fellow Polish international striker Marek Saganowski were loaned out before the season started while a third senior striker, Stern John, was loaned out in mid- October.
Nathan Dyer started the season in and around the first team squad but was loaned out to Sheffield United in October and later Swansea.
With Rasiak on around £10,000 a week at St Mary’s, Saints would have saved around £400,000 having him at Watford throughout 2008/09.
With £8,000 a week Saganowski at Danish club Aalborg for the first half of the term, that would have saved around £200,000.
The club would also have saved a similar amount having John, also on £8,000 a week, loaned out to Bristol City Dyer’s salary is unknown, but even if it was £2,000 a week that’s a £50,000 saving.
In all, Saints would have saved around £850,000 on those four players’ wages .
On all the salaries they have saved on, you can also add a saving of national insurance contributions.
All those savings on salaries equals around £3m – a fifth of the club’s total income for the financial year ending June 2008.
Comments(3)
status
says...
2:38pm Sat 16 May 09
pugwash
says...
7:50pm Sat 16 May 09
status wrote:It did'n't seem that long ago,when having moved into St. Marys with gates averaging over 30,000,and instead of the annual relegation scrap,the Saints were beginning to hold their own in the premier league.I can clearly remember they along with Charlton being held as fine examples of how to cope with life in the premiership without a multi millionaire to keep them there.Unfortunately,
After all that we saved aload of money and actually had no players left...and now nearly no club!! is it just the way football is going or were we badly run?
time has moved on fast,and clubs such as Southampton,Norwich and Charlton-all entertaining football teams have been pushed aside by millionaire owned clubs,pompey being a typical example.But the penny may soon drop-as Dave Whelan at Wigan said recently,you never make money out of football,you do it for the love of your club.True words,and maybe if Sky pull out of football one day,and millionaires get bored with putting their money into a bottomless pits,then maybe clubs like Southampton can fight with both hands again,instead of one tied behind their backs as they are now.
loweout@hotmail.co.uk says...
2:26pm Sat 16 May 09
All fans acknowledge the need to cut our cloth accordingly in the 2008 season, but the knack is knowing where to draw the line.
By going cheap on the manager by gambling on JP and relying on inexperienced, untried youth ahead of experienced players, the result has been for all to see.... an appalling home record and falling gate attendances, which coupled with the return of Lowe and Wilde, meant we had attendances below our break even requirements.
This is fundamentally why Lowe was so disliked, he has no football knowledge or "feeling" for making the right calls, especially since WGS departure.