Quote:
For reference, here is a comparison between the wage budgets of all Premier League clubs in 2019-2020 and how those budgets would be affected if a similar financial regulation-system as La Liga use was enforced for the 2021-2022 season. All graphics used to provide this information comes from the Athletic!
Manchester City: ?351M to ?428M (+ ?77M)
Manchester United: ?284M to ?456M ( + ?172M)
Liverpool: ?326M to ?339M (+ ?13M)
Chelsea: ?283M to ?351M (+ ?68M)
Arsenal: ?225M to ?316M (+ ?91M)
Tottenham: ?181M to ?346M (+ ?165M)
Leicester City: ?157M to ?94M (- ?63M)
Everton: ?165M to ?49M (- ?116M)
Aston Villa: ?109M to ?67M (- ?42M)
Crystal Palace: ?132M to ?70M (- ?62M)
West Ham: ?127M to ?132M (+ ?5M)
Southampton: ?114M to ?120M (+ ?6M)
Brighton: ?103M to ?74M (- ?29M)
Newcastle: ?101M to ?141M (+ ?40M)
Burnley: ?100M to ?106M (+ ?6M)
Watford: ?96M to ?71M (- ?25M)
Wolves: ?95M to ?104M (+ ?9M)
Norwich: ?89M to ?92M (+ ?3M)
Some interesting points here. With La liga's regulations, Everton would be given a wage budget similar to that of Real Valladolid & Getafe, and less than that of Granada & Celta Vigo. Other big overspenders are Leicester City, Crystal Palace and Aston Villa, who would all be forced to lower their budget significantly. Leicester would be lower than the likes of Athletic Bilbao, Real Sociedad and Valencia.
This also shows the sustainability of the "top 6" compared to the others. They would all be allowed significantly increased wage budgets compared to 2019-2020 despite the impact of covid 19. In contrast, the other clubs are having to stretch themselves and take huge financial gambles to have the slightest chance of keeping up.
Quote:
To further evaluate the sustainability contrasts, let's take a look at how big a percentage of their revenues that clubs spend on wages. These numbers are taken from the 2018-2019 season
The top 5 biggest risk takers:
Everton: 85% of total revenues spent on wages
Leicester City: 84%
AFC Bournemouth: 80%
Southampton: 77%
Crystal Palace: 77%
Top 5 most sustainable:
Tottenham: 39%
Cardiff City: 43%
Manchester United: 53%
Wolves: 53%
Huddersfield: 54%
Some conclusions to take from this are that certain clubs take enormous risks in order to compete. It is generally said that spending more than 65-70% of your total revenues on wages is very unhealthy. To see 3 clubs at 80% or more is staggering, with another 2 at 77%. West Ham and Brighton were both at 71%, making it 7 clubs in total spending over 70% of revenues on wages.
It also shows that for newly promoted clubs who take a more healthy and realistic approach, they have very little chance of establishing themselvea. Cardiff City and Huddersfield Town were both quickly relegated back to the Championship, whilst Wolves are an anomaly with their close partnership with Jorge Mendes. Tottenham under Daniel Levy are a terrifically run club on the financial side, and Man United's revenues are still strong enough to support their high salaries without many issues.