There is a common mistake made among most football fans when evaluating the worth of a player or potential signing. Price tags of 10 million pounds or infamously 35 million pounds are vocally thrown around in pubs and have become the sole reference to a players worth or subsequent expense to their respective clubs. A major factor that is commonly overlooked in this process of both buying and selling players is the players wages. This may be a result of the media twisting the facts, but the impact of wages on any deal has a major influence on whether the prospective deal is feasible or worth while for the respective clubs for various reasons.
A common example and debatable topic of discussion is the discrepancy between Andy Carroll and Sergio Aguero who both cost their clubs 35 million pounds. I have had many fans tell me that for the same fee Liverpool payed for Carroll we could have got Aguero. These fans fail to see the impact that the two players wages have over the course of their respective five year contracts. Andy Carroll is believed to be on a 70 000 pounds per week contract while Sergio Aguero's contract amounts to a 200 000 pounds per week contract. It is here that you can see the differences between the two deals as Carroll's wages amount to 18.2 million pounds over his five year deal and Aguero's wages amount to 52 million pounds over the same five year period. When you add their transfer fees to their wages it is easy to see how big the difference is between the two deals. The cost of acquiring Carroll over five years is 53.2 million pounds while the cost of acquiring Aguero over the same period is 87 million pounds. The difference ends up at 33.8 million pounds which to put that into perspective was enough to afford the transfer fees of Suarez, Adam and Enrique. This example obviously ignores the success or quality of the players after or before their transfers and is merely a comparison between two different 35 million pound deals.
The above example is a clear indication of the impact wages can have. When trying to acquire a new player many clubs can afford the players transfer fee yet not their wages which results in the more financially strong clubs getting the pick of potential players. If a team can afford a 20 million pound player and 60 000 a week wages but a financially stronger team can afford higher wages then the players agent will rather push for those higher wages which effectively puts the "smaller" club out of the picture. This trend is common in most transfer dealings as agents try get bigger clubs to come in for their players and aim for higher wages. To look at it from another angle if a team has a 30 million pound budget and are interested in a 15 million pound player who they want to offer a five year contract, the maximum wage they can afford is 58 000 pounds per-week. If the team were to offer this deal then they would have used their entire budget on a single player.
A look at the opposite side of the scale is when clubs get players on a bosman free which is normally seen as a bargain especially in the cases of high profile players. Joe Cole shows that even when a player is acquired on a bosman free he can still be very costly for the club. Cole signed a four deal worth 90 000 pounds a week two seasons ago. He will cost Liverpool around 18.72 million pounds over the course of his contract which is a large fee for someone who has predominantly featured from the bench or not at all. Even this year while Cole has been on loan at Lille, Liverpool have been paying a large chunk of his wages. Liverpool have repeated this kind of deal many times over the last few years for player such as Maxi and Jovanovic, both were given large contracts to persuade them to sign and debatably neither has justified these wages. This point brings me onto the problem that currently faces Liverpool where many players are sitting on large wages which are not justified by their impact on the team or the number of performances they have played.
Liverpool Focus
* All wage figures are taken from various reports and information and should not be taken as completely accurate yet still give a reliable estimate of the players wages.
The above table shows a list of players at Liverpool that are on high wages that are expected or should be moved on this summer if they continue to play bit part roles in the first team. Joe Cole and Aquilani are included as Liverpool still payed the majority of their wages while on loan and are expected to return to Liverpool this summer if permanent deals cannot be struck with their loanee clubs. This table shows how much we are losing each year in potential transfer fees that could be used on prospective new signings. With 23.4 million pounds per year being spent on players that are not regular first team players it is easy to see that moving these players on should be a major priority. Many fans have the rationale that if you cannot get a good transfer fee for a player he should be kept at the club as you would be losing a player for almost "nothing". These fans would like to see Maxi retained or Aquilani return to Liverpool yet if they are not in the first team plans of the manager they are a major financial burden on the club and could mean the difference between getting a new average first team player or a top class first team player.
If you analyse the number of times these six players have started for Liverpool you can better gauge whether their wages are worth it. Fabio Aurelio has been with the club for six years and has only managed to achieve 58 starts for the club. Joe Cole and Alberto Aquilani have only managed 18 starts between them as Liverpool players which nowhere near justifies their wages. Maxi has started 38 games for Liverpool over a three year period receiving around 4 million pounds a year, worth it? Dirk Kuyt and Jamie Carragher are different to the others on the list in that until 2011/2012 season they were both regular starters for the club. This season however they have achieved a combined total of 50 starts which may seem relatively worth it yet these are two players on high wages that are expected to feature less and less over the next few years while continuing to receive the same wages.
All six of the above mentioned players with the exception of Aquilani are reaching or are in their thirties and are on the decline in terms of performances. Tough decisions need to be made to move the club forward and increase our transfer budget. Fabio Aurelio has already left the club due to the expiring of his contract while Maxi Rodriguez seems to be following him out the door. Joe Cole and Alberto Aquilani's futures are up in the air and a decision must be made on both of them. There has been much talk of Dirk Kuyt leaving as well to find regular first team football and many suggestions that this could be Jamie Carragher's last season in front of the Kop. One thing is clear though, even though these players will not command high transfer fees it is there wages that are doing the damage. So before Liverpool go thinking about bringing new players in they should first seek to move on the majority or all six of these high wage, low play players.
References:
Transfermarket, Accessed 14/05/2012, Available at http://www.transfermarkt.co.ukespn/ESPN Soccernet, Accessed 14/05/2012, Available at http://soccernet.espn.go.com
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