To some degree I think the wages thing is a bit of a red herring. Particularly in terms of the numbers being bandied about. Sort of confirmed by Mane's agent indicating his client was on a lot more than the reported 100-150k p/w in some parts of the media/internet.
I'm also not sure about our top earners being on 200k p/w or thereabouts and elsewhere other top clubs can pay +350k p/w on multiple players. We aren't just talking City here. United do. Plus they carry a squad as big as ours.
Our reported wage bill is 4th in the league but the difference between us, Chelsea and United isn't huge. In our last accounts, our wage bill was £320M. Now I'm assuming this covers coaching staff, non-footballing staff (think that's about 1500-2000), youth team players and the 1st team squad.
If you use the reported weekly wage values on the internet then the 1st team yearly wage bill comes to about £140M. That leaves £180M for youth team players (who are supposedly capped on about 2k p/w max), coaching staff and non-footballing staff.
I'm not sure we pay 180M in wages on people who don't make up the 1st team playing squad. I'm sure we pay a lot to have Klopp and his coaching team. Head of departments (nutrition, physio/doctors, commercial, academy, Mike Gordon, etc..) will be on a decent wedge, as will the people immediately below them. I just don't see Betty from accounts or Jimmy who works the gate at Kirkby getting 50-60,000 per year.
My guess is that the wages reported are likely the guaranteed money or base salary. You probably have bonuses on top of that. Bonuses that can add, for example, up to a high percentage of the base salary depending on collective and individual performance. The 200k p/w that Salah and Thiago are on is the absolute minimum they will pick up. That could easily be topped up to over 300k p/w based on bonuses. I think the bonus schemes and incentivised contracts are a thing at each club but where the %'s lie between base salary and bonuses may be different.
I've said this before, but I've had some insight to the bonus scheme for some individuals at another Top 6 PL club. The bonuses were staggering for non-playing staff that were not directly involved in coaching the 1st team, never mind the 1st team players. I wouldn't be surprised if individually our players are earning millions in bonuses each year. I'd guess that someone like Salah last season, who won golden boot, scored lots, won 2 cups, came 2nd in the league and got to CL final wouldn't being taking home an additional 5M at least in bonuses on top of his '200k p/w'.
People will think this is untrue but if you look at the percentages between base and bonus as the total compensation package it wouldn't look that different to someone working at a senior level in a global company in a non-sporting sector.
