CASH AND BURN
Clarets on rise but not in salaries
BURNLEY’S over-achieving stars pick up some of the Premier League’s smallest pay packets but boss Sean Dyche is confident they won’t be demanding huge rises.
His players earn less than every other top-flight club bar Huddersfield and today’s opponents Brighton, according to a recent report.
Yet the Clarets climbed into the top four on Tuesday by beating Stoke and sit sixth as they prepare to travel to the Seagulls.
It is a great achievement for a club whose average player salary is £26,375 a week – less than bottom club Swansea.
It is a fraction of the average of £100,792 a week paid to top-spending Manchester United’s players, and the £100,691 pulled in by stars at leaders Manchester City.
Those figures, released as part of the global sports salaries survey published by Sporting Intelligence last month, show the size of Burnley’s achievement.
But manager Dyche is not worried about wage demands getting out of control.
He said: “Our players are not on their knees. We do nicely out of it.
“In a sport that is so wealthy there is an upper echelon, of course, and we all know ® where that is. We can’t compete there. We can’t always compete with the middle of the market.
“We compete in a sense that the players have a collective value, they’re all in it together and they’re all involved. We don’t carry massive numbers so you’re always on the cusp of playing.
“You’d have to ask them but I can assure you they’re doing all right. There’ll be meat on the table at the weekend, as my dad used to say.”
Dyche has pushed Burnley up the table despite selling two of last season’s key players, with centre-back Michael Keane going to Everton in a deal that could be worth £30m and striker Andre Gray heading to Watford for £18m.
He knows more players could go if bigger clubs come in but in an era when Paris St-Germain can prise Neymar out of Barcelona for a world record £198m, as they did in August, no club is safe.
Dyche added: “Our players are all under decent contracts and situations that are controllable. We’re obviously not under pressure to sell financially.
“It’s foolish to absolutely guarantee nothing can happen. Neymar is a prime example. They made it happen.”