After Tottenham Hotspur released their 2016/17 financial results, let’s take a look at how the big-six Premier League teams compare in terms of wages.
Twitter user Swiss Ramble has done a great job of breaking down the results in full, but we’re focusing on the wage bills of each of the big-six clubs in particular.
For each club, we’ll look at the amount spent on player wages, and what percentage of their total turnover that constitutes. Then we’ll also look at the amount they’re each spending on directors, to see how that compares.
5Arsenal
- Wage bill: £199m (5th in the Premier League)
- Wage bill as percentage of turnover: 47% (18th in the Premier League)
- Highest paid director: £2.618m (2nd in the Premier League)
Despite being £72m above Tottenham, Arsenal’s wage bill is still the second smallest of the big-six clubs.
Like Spurs, it’s also only a very small percentage of the club’s turnover. Compare Arsenal’s 47% with Crystal Palace at the top of the list, spending 79% of their turnover on wages.
According to BBC journalist David Ornstein, the club have run into trouble with the cost control measures. They prevented Arsenal from making any major signings last summer, and it was only once Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Olivier Giroud, Theo Walcott and Francis Coquelin were all on the way out that they could afford Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang on the wage bill.
Clearly that’s not a problem when paying directors, given Ivan Gazidis’ high wages. Then again, it’s still not even half what the Spurs directors are earning.