'Record' Premier League wage bill - 阿森納兵工廠足球俱樂部 Arsenal Football Club

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7423254.stm#wages

Premier League clubs are spending a greater proportion of their cash on wages
than ever before, a report into football finances has found.

The revenues of top-flight English sides topped ￡1.5bn for the first time in
the 2006/7 season, Deloitte said.

But the ratio of footballers' wages to turnover hit its highest level since
the league began in 1992.

Pursuing on-pitch success meant clubs spent on players to the detriment of
their finances, the report said.

Only eight of the 20 Premier League clubs recorded an operating profit in
2006/7 - half the number which did so a year earlier.

However, strong English representation in the Champions League - with three
semi-finalists in successive years - suggested that quality in the Premier
League was continuing to improve, it added.

'Sustainable level'

Wages paid by top-flight English sides grew by 13% from the previous season
to ￡969m

One club, Reading, saw its wage bill more than double, while Portsmouth and
West Ham United spent 49% and 41% more respectively on paying their players.
Chelsea had the highest wage bill, totalling ￡132.8m

Spending was partly driven by the arrival of a new three-year broadcasting
deal - worth ￡1.7bn - which began in August last year.


Click here to see the wages of the Big Five leagues
This will propel Premier League revenues for the 2007/8 season to about ￡
1.9bn, the report estimated.

"A number of clubs essentially spent some of the money on new players and
wages in advance," said one of the report's authors, Deloitte's Alan Switzer.


"They knew the broadcast revenue was coming so it was acceptable to do so,
but what would be more worrying would be if clubs' wage bills increased even
more significantly in coming years."

The wages-to-turnover ratio hit 63%, up from 62% in 2005/6 and 48% in 1996/7,
though Mr Switzer said this was "still at a sustainable level".

"Wages will have gone beyond ￡1bn for the season which has just ended. It
will be interesting to see what happens next, and how high they will go."

'Trophy assets'

Much of the investment has been at clubs which have seen new owners at the
helm, said Dan Jones, a partner in Deloitte's sports business group.


However, the failure of clubs to produce a strong bottom line suggested that
club owners might not have a "real desire" to make significant profits.

"The improvement in cost control which would demonstrate a normal business
culture of maximising profitability does not appear to be happening at
Premier league clubs," he said.

"It seems that, as in prior decades, we are seeing football clubs treated as
'trophy assets', except with clubs now owned by billionaires from a range of
nationalities rather than local businessmen made good, reflecting the global
appeal of the game."


The "key strategy" to making money for the club was in selling it on by
building up a brand value, he added, "rather than a more tangible ongoing
measure such as profitability".

Elsewhere in Europe, the top flight of the French, Italian and Spanish
leagues saw about the same proportion of turnover being spent on wages as in
the Premier league.

However in Germany, only 45% of income went on salaries.

The Bundesliga had the highest operating profit margin in Europe, the report
said, at 18%.


This was helped by Germany having Europe's highest average attendances - with
fans drawn by the continent's lowest ticket prices.

However the report noted that "the price of Bundesliga's clubs' very good
financial performance seems to be a struggle to reach the latter stages of
European club competition in recent years".


如果對歐洲職業足球經濟有興趣想多了解的朋友來說
我覺得這是這是一篇非常非常棒的文章
強烈推薦你們點選連結直接上BBC網站去看
裡面有更詳細的數據和圖表可以參考


讀後心得...
1) 相較之下,英超真的完全是另一個世界的聯賽啊!!
2) 聯賽前兩名的負債,也是來自另一個世界的...
3) 雷丁好慘,球員調薪幅度109%,結果...
4) 近年來雖說德甲歐戰成績普遍不佳,不過穩健經營之下,整個聯盟的財務體質看起來最健康~~令人佩服!
5) BBC新聞附圖中,還小小的挖苦了特里一下 XD


Deloitte是提出這份研究報告的組織
在台灣叫做勤業眾信會計師事務所~~國際上很大間的

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