MIND THE GAP
Top-flight wagessoar as the rest creep along
NEW official wage figures obtained by The Irish Mail on Sunday reveal how the gap between the Premier League and everyone else continues to widen – but how lower-league salaries have remained close to ordinary family incomes.
With FA Cup weekend in full swing, teams with contrasting financial resources are being pitted against each other, nowhere more dramatically than at New Meadow tomorrow, where Shrewsbury of League One host England’s richest club, Manchester United.
The new wage data seen by the MoS covers the past five seasons across the Football League.
Last season, average basic pay in the Championship was £324,250 per player per year, before appearance money and bonuses, while it was £69,500 in League One and £40,350 in League Two.
In the Premier League, first-team average salaries were around £1.7million last season, rising above £2m with ‘routine’ bonuses.
That means top-flight players earned just over five times as much as Championship players, almost 25 times as much as League One players, and around 42 times as much as League Two players, whose basic average salaries are roughly the same as the national average household income of almost £40,000.
Thirty years ago, a top-flight footballer earned on average £25,000 per year, or just two-and-a-half times as much as the average household income of £9,788.
By 1995-96, a top-flight footballer earned six-and-ahalf times as much as an ordinary family, and by 10 years ago it was more than 20 times as much, or £686,000 versus £33,000 per year. Now it’s more than 40 times as much.
Looking specifically at the disparity between United and Shrewsbury, who have moved from the old Second Division to the non-League and back to the third-tier since 1985-86, the wealth gap has become consistently bigger. United’s whole wage bill was £2.58m as recently as 1985-86, or 10 times bigger than Shrewsbury’s. That ratio was almost the same even 20 years ago.
But by 2005-06, United were paying almost 50 times as much in wages (£65m versus £1.4m) and today almost 100 times more (£210m versus £2.5m).
The Premier League’s TV deals have driven the growth at the top end, with some trickle-down to the Championship, but below that pay levels are much closer to ordinary fans, as they have been for decades.