As Portsmouth stare into the financial abyss, more and more players on lucrative contracts are languishing on the sidelines
Posted by Jamie Jackson Sunday 10 January 2010 00.10 GMT [Guardian]
John Utaka celebrates scoring a rare goal for Portsmouth following his £7m transfer from Rennes. Photograph: Eddie Keogh/Reuters
John Utaka was Portsmouth's record signing when he joined from Rennes in July 2007 for £7m. In two and a half years, he has become their record waste of money.
Utaka has started 31 Premier League games and scored seven times in all competitions. Since claiming five of those goals in his opening season the Nigerian's form has declined disappointingly. This season his highlight was scoring against Hereford United in the Carling Cup five months ago. Despite Portsmouth's well-documented problems – Avram Grant has only 17 outfield players, and is operating under a transfer embargo – Utaka has started only twice in the league, back in August. Not only was Utaka rejected by Nigeria for the Africa Cup of Nations that starts tonight, he did not even get into the 32-man preliminary squad.
Portsmouth are debt-ridden and threatened with administration. Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs served a winding-up petition on the club just before Christmas, and Portsmouth cannot find the £10m required to lift the transfer embargo. Utaka, meanwhile, continues to enjoy the rewards of his four-year contract on a barely credible £80,000 a week. If he stays to the end of his term, the total cost to Portsmouth will be about £23m. That would be enough to secure their immediate future.
Utaka, through no fault of his own, is an ongoing liability who arguably represents the worst piece of transfer business ever conducted by Portsmouth's chief executive Peter Storrie and the club's former manager Harry Redknapp. On landing him Redknapp said of Utaka and another player signed that day: "I'm delighted with the pair of them, they will give us an awful lot up front. We're bringing in people who are ready to play and it will make us stronger."
Utaka's new strike partner? David Nugent. The £6m acquisition was, strangely, never given a run in the first team by Redknapp, and is currently farmed out on loan at Burnley, having started 18 league games in three seasons, often out of position.
Portsmouth, though, are not the only club guilty of signing players on lucrative, long-term contracts who run up massive bills while sitting on the bench or playing in the reserves – much to the disgust of resentful supporters.
Seven years after Observer Sport first featured the "waste of money" signings, further scrutiny of the Premier League provides evidence that chairmen, chief executives, directors of football and managers are still patsies for players and agents with slick negotiating skills.
In 2003 Everton's Duncan Ferguson (10 seasons, 59 goals) and Leeds' Seth Johnson (£7m from Derby, 15 league starts, one goal, £35,000 a week) were among the costliest mistakes. In 2010 Utaka is joined by, among others, Liverpool's £11.5m Ryan Babel (five-year contract, £45,000 a week), £17m David Bentley at Spurs (six years, £50,000 a week), and several Newcastle United players who are on £50,000-plus.
According to the accountants Deloitte, salaries continue to be a bigger drain on finances than transfer fees. In 2003, the total transfer spend was £248m. In 2008 (the latest available figure) it was £675m. The wages cost £548m and £787m respectively, so the gap is closing between transfer fees and wages, but the overall outlay nearly doubled in five years.
"It's accelerated out of all proportion. And, it's a massive, massive capital outlay for the potential return," says David Pleat, the former Tottenham manager and director of football, who is now Nottingham Forest's special adviser. "If you pay a very high fee there's not many clubs you can hive that player off to if they're not successful. Some of the have-nots have been absolutely stupid, like Portsmouth, and have just paid for what they consider assets in pursuit of short-term glory. A lot of clubs are loaded with players on high salaries who they'd have massive problems manoeuvring to other clubs."
Such mismanagement by Portsmouth (their recorded wages outlay for 2008 was £54.6m) has left them with the near impossible task of shifting Utaka, who is trousering the sort of money earned by marquee performers at Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool or Chelsea. Even Arsenal's best-paid player, Cesc Fábregas, apparently earns "only" £60,000 a week.
The problem has not gone away for Redknapp in his new role at Spurs. His current problem high-earners start with Bentley, who signed for Spurs a few months before Redknapp's arrival in 2008. The return for more than £20m spent on Bentley's transfer fee and wages so far: 21 league starts, a single goal, a drink-driving conviction and an England career stalled at six caps.
While Chelsea were relieved to sell Steve Sidwell in 2008 after a single £50,000-a-week season in which he made seven starts, Aston Villa fans are not so happy with Martin O'Neill's decision to pay £5m for the midfielder. He has played for Villa 32 times and is seen by regulars as excess to requirements.
At Anfield Babel, who has made 24 League starts since 2007, and Andriy Voronin, five goals and 14 starts for his £30,000 a week deal before this week's move to Dynamo Moscow, have disappointed. Liverpool's debt is £350m and rising.
Pleat adds: "I believe [Arsène] Wenger runs a football club like a football club should be run. There is a definite balance between what comes in and what comes out."
This month, Wenger was indeed contemptuous of overspending and financial incompetence. "Professional football is about winning and balancing the budget. That's the basic rule, one I fought for. All the rest is half-cheating. For every club it has to be the same. I always pleaded for financial fair play. The clubs belong to the fans. That's all I feel my responsibility is, to keep the club in good financial condition."
Wenger's comments followed Chelsea's statement that they were now free of debt, having converted £340m owed to Roman Abramovich into shares. He spoke ahead of Arsenal's meeting with West Ham, another financially stricken Premier League club hoping for a buyer, one willing to take on their £70m liabilities.
Who, then, is to blame when clubs spend so much money – waste so much money – on underperforming players? Listen to Seth Johnson and, it appears, the players should not be held responsible. Johnson says of his infamous move to Leeds: "I would have been a fool to turn down the money. It was nothing to do with me – everyone in the country would have done the same thing."
The Professional Footballers' Association would hardly advocate any changes that might curtail members' income. "I don't like salary capping, it's an artificial structure," says the PFA's chief executive, Gordon Taylor. "The fact that there's more money in the game than ever is more reason to have strong financial propriety. It's like playing cards for big stakes, you can lose much more heavily."
The Premier League's stance is that what clubs pay players is their business. Pleat agrees. "Alan Sugar [Tottenham's chairman from 1991-99] said many years ago at a Premier League meeting, 'Gentlemen, it doesn't matter whether the television company gives us £3m or £33m, we'll piss it up the wall on wages.'."
Below the top tier some effort has been made, though not universally. Four years ago, League Two owners agreed to cap wages at 60% of turnover. But League One and Championship clubs refuse, despite campaigning from Lord Mawhinney.
Echoing Sugar, the Football League chairman says: "After I'd told the Championship clubs we'd done a new media deal for a 130% increase in their TV revenue, one chairman said, 'Brian, for God's sake give us some help because if you don't put in some form of regulation, we're going to piss this money up the wall on players' wages'."
One advocate of a salary cap is the Hull chairman Adam Pearson. He returned to Hull this season after a stint with Derby, and wants to offload several high earners to cut the wage bill by around £9m and avoid serious financial problems.
Pearson believes the game would benefit from having limits imposed on their wage bill, and said: "Clubs have to have a grip on wages. If a club has a turnover of £50m, for instance, then 55-60% would be an acceptable amount to spend on wages with maybe a further £1.5m to be paid on agents' fees.
"The rest could then be used on improving the infrastructure of the club. It is not rocket science."
There is, however, no prospect of Premier League clubs collectively deciding on a salary cap, according to a League spokesman. One successful agent concurs, while also telling Observer Sport: "In my experience, clubs are not bargaining hard on contracts."
This is a familiar refrain to Pleat. "Players who are promoted to the Premier League and get increased money won't accept it all on appearances. And the big problem is the agent won't accept that, if relegated, the player will take an X per cent pay cut in basic salary.
"We've given all the money away. Players have had shrewd agents acting on their behalf and the clubs have succumbed."
Posted by Jamie Jackson Sunday 10 January 2010 00.10 GMT [Guardian]
John Utaka celebrates scoring a rare goal for Portsmouth following his £7m transfer from Rennes. Photograph: Eddie Keogh/Reuters
John Utaka was Portsmouth's record signing when he joined from Rennes in July 2007 for £7m. In two and a half years, he has become their record waste of money.
Utaka has started 31 Premier League games and scored seven times in all competitions. Since claiming five of those goals in his opening season the Nigerian's form has declined disappointingly. This season his highlight was scoring against Hereford United in the Carling Cup five months ago. Despite Portsmouth's well-documented problems – Avram Grant has only 17 outfield players, and is operating under a transfer embargo – Utaka has started only twice in the league, back in August. Not only was Utaka rejected by Nigeria for the Africa Cup of Nations that starts tonight, he did not even get into the 32-man preliminary squad.
Portsmouth are debt-ridden and threatened with administration. Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs served a winding-up petition on the club just before Christmas, and Portsmouth cannot find the £10m required to lift the transfer embargo. Utaka, meanwhile, continues to enjoy the rewards of his four-year contract on a barely credible £80,000 a week. If he stays to the end of his term, the total cost to Portsmouth will be about £23m. That would be enough to secure their immediate future.
Utaka, through no fault of his own, is an ongoing liability who arguably represents the worst piece of transfer business ever conducted by Portsmouth's chief executive Peter Storrie and the club's former manager Harry Redknapp. On landing him Redknapp said of Utaka and another player signed that day: "I'm delighted with the pair of them, they will give us an awful lot up front. We're bringing in people who are ready to play and it will make us stronger."
Utaka's new strike partner? David Nugent. The £6m acquisition was, strangely, never given a run in the first team by Redknapp, and is currently farmed out on loan at Burnley, having started 18 league games in three seasons, often out of position.
Portsmouth, though, are not the only club guilty of signing players on lucrative, long-term contracts who run up massive bills while sitting on the bench or playing in the reserves – much to the disgust of resentful supporters.
Seven years after Observer Sport first featured the "waste of money" signings, further scrutiny of the Premier League provides evidence that chairmen, chief executives, directors of football and managers are still patsies for players and agents with slick negotiating skills.
In 2003 Everton's Duncan Ferguson (10 seasons, 59 goals) and Leeds' Seth Johnson (£7m from Derby, 15 league starts, one goal, £35,000 a week) were among the costliest mistakes. In 2010 Utaka is joined by, among others, Liverpool's £11.5m Ryan Babel (five-year contract, £45,000 a week), £17m David Bentley at Spurs (six years, £50,000 a week), and several Newcastle United players who are on £50,000-plus.
According to the accountants Deloitte, salaries continue to be a bigger drain on finances than transfer fees. In 2003, the total transfer spend was £248m. In 2008 (the latest available figure) it was £675m. The wages cost £548m and £787m respectively, so the gap is closing between transfer fees and wages, but the overall outlay nearly doubled in five years.
"It's accelerated out of all proportion. And, it's a massive, massive capital outlay for the potential return," says David Pleat, the former Tottenham manager and director of football, who is now Nottingham Forest's special adviser. "If you pay a very high fee there's not many clubs you can hive that player off to if they're not successful. Some of the have-nots have been absolutely stupid, like Portsmouth, and have just paid for what they consider assets in pursuit of short-term glory. A lot of clubs are loaded with players on high salaries who they'd have massive problems manoeuvring to other clubs."
Such mismanagement by Portsmouth (their recorded wages outlay for 2008 was £54.6m) has left them with the near impossible task of shifting Utaka, who is trousering the sort of money earned by marquee performers at Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool or Chelsea. Even Arsenal's best-paid player, Cesc Fábregas, apparently earns "only" £60,000 a week.
The problem has not gone away for Redknapp in his new role at Spurs. His current problem high-earners start with Bentley, who signed for Spurs a few months before Redknapp's arrival in 2008. The return for more than £20m spent on Bentley's transfer fee and wages so far: 21 league starts, a single goal, a drink-driving conviction and an England career stalled at six caps.
While Chelsea were relieved to sell Steve Sidwell in 2008 after a single £50,000-a-week season in which he made seven starts, Aston Villa fans are not so happy with Martin O'Neill's decision to pay £5m for the midfielder. He has played for Villa 32 times and is seen by regulars as excess to requirements.
At Anfield Babel, who has made 24 League starts since 2007, and Andriy Voronin, five goals and 14 starts for his £30,000 a week deal before this week's move to Dynamo Moscow, have disappointed. Liverpool's debt is £350m and rising.
Pleat adds: "I believe [Arsène] Wenger runs a football club like a football club should be run. There is a definite balance between what comes in and what comes out."
This month, Wenger was indeed contemptuous of overspending and financial incompetence. "Professional football is about winning and balancing the budget. That's the basic rule, one I fought for. All the rest is half-cheating. For every club it has to be the same. I always pleaded for financial fair play. The clubs belong to the fans. That's all I feel my responsibility is, to keep the club in good financial condition."
Wenger's comments followed Chelsea's statement that they were now free of debt, having converted £340m owed to Roman Abramovich into shares. He spoke ahead of Arsenal's meeting with West Ham, another financially stricken Premier League club hoping for a buyer, one willing to take on their £70m liabilities.
Who, then, is to blame when clubs spend so much money – waste so much money – on underperforming players? Listen to Seth Johnson and, it appears, the players should not be held responsible. Johnson says of his infamous move to Leeds: "I would have been a fool to turn down the money. It was nothing to do with me – everyone in the country would have done the same thing."
The Professional Footballers' Association would hardly advocate any changes that might curtail members' income. "I don't like salary capping, it's an artificial structure," says the PFA's chief executive, Gordon Taylor. "The fact that there's more money in the game than ever is more reason to have strong financial propriety. It's like playing cards for big stakes, you can lose much more heavily."
The Premier League's stance is that what clubs pay players is their business. Pleat agrees. "Alan Sugar [Tottenham's chairman from 1991-99] said many years ago at a Premier League meeting, 'Gentlemen, it doesn't matter whether the television company gives us £3m or £33m, we'll piss it up the wall on wages.'."
Below the top tier some effort has been made, though not universally. Four years ago, League Two owners agreed to cap wages at 60% of turnover. But League One and Championship clubs refuse, despite campaigning from Lord Mawhinney.
Echoing Sugar, the Football League chairman says: "After I'd told the Championship clubs we'd done a new media deal for a 130% increase in their TV revenue, one chairman said, 'Brian, for God's sake give us some help because if you don't put in some form of regulation, we're going to piss this money up the wall on players' wages'."
One advocate of a salary cap is the Hull chairman Adam Pearson. He returned to Hull this season after a stint with Derby, and wants to offload several high earners to cut the wage bill by around £9m and avoid serious financial problems.
Pearson believes the game would benefit from having limits imposed on their wage bill, and said: "Clubs have to have a grip on wages. If a club has a turnover of £50m, for instance, then 55-60% would be an acceptable amount to spend on wages with maybe a further £1.5m to be paid on agents' fees.
"The rest could then be used on improving the infrastructure of the club. It is not rocket science."
There is, however, no prospect of Premier League clubs collectively deciding on a salary cap, according to a League spokesman. One successful agent concurs, while also telling Observer Sport: "In my experience, clubs are not bargaining hard on contracts."
This is a familiar refrain to Pleat. "Players who are promoted to the Premier League and get increased money won't accept it all on appearances. And the big problem is the agent won't accept that, if relegated, the player will take an X per cent pay cut in basic salary.
"We've given all the money away. Players have had shrewd agents acting on their behalf and the clubs have succumbed."
What a shambles Ridsdale and O'Leary were.
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