Chatterbox Thursday

Erm, guys, aren't you forgetting something...

*wafts blue passport in the air*

In the accounts to 30 June 2022 (May for AVFC)
Hibs wage costs were     £8.5m (£7.5m excluding ERNI and Pensions. 2/3 of the employees were players and coaches.
AVFC wage costs were    £137m (£120m excluding pensions and ERNI) Only 1 in 4 employees are players and coaches

I make it Hibs paid £6m to 6.2m to 83 players and coaches. If the bottom 50 or so earn £30,0000 each on average that means the first team squad and manager average about £135,000.
It's difficult to tell, but I assume the 231 players and coaches at AVFC split about £100m between them. If we allow an average of £40k for the bottom 180 that leaves about £93m between the first team and coaches, If we further assume that half of those earn an average of £500k each (it's probably less) that leaves the average first team squad member of £3.2m per year. Which is probably right.
Coutinho alone probably earns more than the entire Hibs squad. And they don't even want him. 

That is they are paying 16* the wages, not 100* the wages.

I think AVFC wages will have increased since then. I don't think Hibs will have done

To put it in to context there are some League One clubs with wage bills about the same as Hibs. And Hibs are one of the top 6 paying clubs in Scotland. I think Salford in the National League signed Adam Rooney on £250,000 a year a couple of years ago.

Now we have non-criminal owners our income is up. It would be higher if we could open the whole ground, but the contractor went bust last week.
We were using Buckingham, the same people as Liverpool and Fulham. Not some cheapo Tile Cross company. We might have been better off with them though.
With part of the ground closed and dodgy owners our commercial side really suffered. We should be getting in £10m a season more than we were - we used to even in the Championship.
We also get £8m a season more in TV money and have been spending £13m a season extra plus the Bellingham money on top of this.
Our spending has been £35m or so which is massive compared to any SPL club outside the sisters.
I think we paid only £750k plus success fees for Cosgrove. So you'll have to pay us back £800,000.

In the EPL they are allowed to lose £35m a year. The wages should be about 70% of turnover, I think. But this isn't enforced well. If Man City want a new player they up the Etihad sponsorship by £20m a year or something.
There's a load of rubbish goes into to player amortisation costs.
Every so often an owner writes off £250 or £500m or runs out of cash and sells the club. Or they get relegated.
If you follow the accounts of a club over 5 years or so they tend to reveal the 'truth' but over a season not so much. Especially Chelsea accounts.
Also you need to follow the cash. not just the 'profits'.  You can see when clubs are up to tricks better then. I remember Chelsea declaring a profit of £30m, but needing a cash injection of £150m a few seasons ago.
The whole thing is amaze.

The Swiss Ramble does some good stuff on clubs finances, but he's gone paywalled recently. Left Twitter for Patreon / Only Fans  I think. I am not a subscriber. 

In Lanzarote.

Sunny out.

13/15

Lunch blog: I worked from home until 3pm, so I had scrambled eggs with homegrown tomatoes and rocket. Laptop died about 1.30 and my charger was at work, so I just did work in my head while watching Friends* after that.

*Not my choice.

There is a book called Lanzarote. A novel about a man who goes on holiday to Lanzarote. I’ve sometimes thought it might be good to read in Lanzarote. But I’ve never been.

Football finances and dodgy accounting.

Shenguin uploaded piccys of his 'Ken' doll collection.

Is that a sequel?

I don't think Glamorama is the worst book ever.
The worst by a technically competent author? Maybe.
I mean it has a plot. It has consistent characters and the individual sentences all make sense.
I have definitely read books where 2 or even all 3 did not apply.