KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum LFC new salary policy and ambitions?

It's clear that the club have decided to cut overheads at the club. That much is obvious. Whether this is to release more funds to increase squad depth or simply to line their own pockets is anyone's guess.

My concern is the knock on effects of this. Let's presume that the club are setting a ceiling wage of £65k per week - I know it seems low but if that is all what they offered to Sneijder, one of the world's top midfielders, then I can't seem them paying any newcomers (under24s with little experience) more than that.

With the wage ceiling in mind (be it £65k/£75/£85k....), what will happen to out current top earners whose contracts are currently exceeding the new wage limit? Is it safe to assume that once these players are in the last 2 years of their current contracts then we will be selling them? There's not much chance of anyone earning £90k, £100k+ taking a wage drop of 30% or more, and we won't let their contracts run down.

Which players do we think are currently earning more than the club want to pay? Will we be waving goodbye to Gerrard, Suarez, Johnson, Reina, Agger, Henderson, Carroll, Downing sooner rather than later?....These could all be on the move and replaced by younger, cheaper options. I don't see anyway for younger, cheaper options to be better than the above so surely we will drop down the table?

The way I see it, FSG don't want us to move forward. They want to reduce costs and sell up. At present we are the 4th highest payers but the 7th/8th best team. Reducing salaries/getting in cheaper players won't move us up the table. FSG seem to be reducing our costs to match our current/recent league positions ie instead of making us better they want reduce our wage bill to match where we are.

I don't see it that way. I see it as any new players coming in might only earn at most 65k but if they play well, they earn the right to a big contract in and around the 100+k.

It's a sound policy in theory and will hopefully give youngsters coming to the club the hunger to earn that lucrative contract but the worry is do we refuse to sign a player if his demands are above the 65k threshold? Even in and around 80k is not a high price to pay nowadays.

I think a balance has to be set where the aim isn't to have a max wage but to set wages at a level relative to turnover giving leeway to bigger wages for some players. If this makes potential players who should be worth only 50k a week look for more, then tell them where to go and stick to our guns as we seem to have done this year

I can't see that working. A player on £100k won't drop by 30% just for the chance to get back up to £100k in a few years time.
FSG need to realise that today's footballer is money driven. Top players want top money. Gone are the days when people would want to play for us 'because we are LFC'. A generation of under achievement has seen to that.

IF we can afford big salaries for top players then we should do so. Apparently, our club has never been in a better position commercially so who is benefitting from these big commercial deals I wonder...?

thats what I mean about the balance. The lads who can expect the 65k are the young up and coming potential where 65k should be the ceiling for them but not the lads 23 and up. They should be setting a 55% wage:turnover ratio and set individual wages appropriately

I agree with FSG,s policy if paying sky high wages was the route to success we would have won the title years ago

So you think small wages is the key to success? Good luck with that one! Our past failings have been down to crap players on big wages, not good players on big wages. You can't blame the wages.

Don't spurs and Arsenal have some kind of wage limit in place? Those are the 2 teams we need to be competing with. We should be able to match their salaries and there is no reason why the 3 of us shouldn't be battling it out for 4th place.
There's no point in tryin to compete with Chelsea, Utd or City as they will just rause the stakes and bankrupt us. If we aren't paying our players as much as spurs and arsenal then we aren't going to be anywhere near 4th place.

we did.

don't quite get your point above. are you saying if we pay too little we won't win the league? but if we pay higher wages we won't win it anyway cos city/utd are too rich for us? so you're suggesting that we should pay somewhere in between to compete for 4th with arsenal and spurs?

Absolutely. Then once we have solidified our position in the top 4 we can start spending the CL money on better players & better wages. There is no way we will become a top 4 side again by offering players less money.

agreed. i'm agreeing with you on an increasing basis carheeX. i won't lie, am a bit freaked out by that!