Estimated Merit Payments 2022/23
- Arteta is now the fourth longest serving manager in the league.
- It’s time to read the football press and really have a laugh
An article in the Metro recently suggested that the prize money this season for the top four clubs was likely to be…
- £44 million
- £41.8 million
- £39.6 million
- £37.4 million
Which is pretty good money and enough to buy another midfield player or maybe a couple of young defenders.
Except that it added, “The only other variable in prize money is domestic facility fees, which is based on how many times each team has played on TV throughout the course of the season. The rest of the Premier League prize money on offer, around £2.5 billion, is divided up equally between all 20 clubs.”
Which makes it rather hard to work out how much Arsenal might get because the domestic facility fees are not listed.
So a bit of a dud article – but fortunately the Athletic has come along and given us a table for each position a club ends up. And since we know Arsenal are second, we can see what the club is likely to get, at least using the Athletic’s figures. It is, in rounded amounts, because we don’t want to mess around with the odd hundred thousand pounds here or there…
- £32m for UK merit
- £39m for international merit
- £71m total merit fee.
So I thought it might be fun to look at the table and see how much they might get if their league position at the end of the season stays as now… The figures throughout are rounded to the nearest million because, well, no one wants to be bothered with the small change, do they?
| Pos | Team | F | A | GD | Pts | Est merit payment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manchester City | 94 | 32 | 62 | 89 | £74m |
| 2 | Arsenal | 83 | 43 | 40 | 81 | £71m |
| 3 | Manchester United | 56 | 42 | 14 | 72 | £67m |
| 4 | Newcastle United | 67 | 32 | 35 | 70 | £63m |
| 5 | Liverpool | 71 | 43 | 28 | 66 | £60m |
| 6 | Brighton and Hove Albion | 71 | 51 | 20 | 62 | £56m |
| 7 | Aston Villa | 49 | 45 | 4 | 58 | £52m |
| 8 | Tottenham Hotspur | 66 | 62 | 4 | 57 | £48m |
| 9 | Brentford | 57 | 46 | 11 | 56 | £44m |
| 10 | Fulham | 54 | 51 | 3 | 52 | £41m |
| 11 | Crystal Palace | 39 | 48 | -9 | 44 | £37m |
| 12 | Chelsea | 37 | 46 | -9 | 43 | £34m |
| 13 | Wolverhampton Wanderers | 31 | 53 | -22 | 41 | £30m |
| 14 | West Ham United | 41 | 53 | -12 | 40 | £26m |
| 15 | AFC Bournemouth | 37 | 70 | -33 | 39 | £22m |
| 16 | Nottingham Forest | 37 | 67 | -30 | 37 | £19m |
| 17 | Everton | 33 | 57 | -24 | 33 | £15m |
| 18 | Leicester City | 49 | 67 | -18 | 31 | £11m |
| 19 | Leeds United | 47 | 74 | -27 | 31 | £7m |
| 20 | Southampton | 32 | 69 | -37 | 24 | £4m |
So there we have it; a difference of £70m between the top and bottom club. Talk about the rich getting richer! But it is a reminder of just how much less one gets in eighth position, which Arsenal occupied for two seasons, and how that has been improved this season. An extra £23m for rising up the league. Or in the case of Tottenham, going down the league.
Now just to put this into a bit of context we can see that the prize money for coming top wouldn’t be enough to buy one of the top eight players in the world at the moment, whose value when they were purchased in the last year or three was estimated at around…. £105m for Enzo Fernandez, £100m for Jack Grealish, £98m for Romelu Lukaku, £82m for Antony (no relation), etc etc.
In fact Arsenal’s money wouldn’t quite be enough to buy Nicolas Pepe from Lille (£72m) or for Chelsea to pick up Kepa Arrizabalga for the same price. Or come to that Mudryk, of whom it has been said quite often. So glad we didn’t.
And speaking of money, as I try to round up today’s news, it appears, according to the Guardian that the mighty Tottenham (currently placed 8th, which is worth £48m) have not been able to agree a deal with Feyenoord for Arne Slot. And isn’t that really so very Tottenham? Seemingly arguing over every last penny and sooner not having a deal than ever being beaten down on price.
Mind you to be fair, they have had three managers this season so they have a spot of paying out to do there. Anyway, Slot has a release clause for next summer so I expect Tottenham, who may well, by then, have had three more managers, might buy him then, because, well, that’s what they do.
Except Slot got a league winner’s medal with Feyenoord this season, and he probably doesn’t want to drop out of the European experience just when it is beckoning.
And actually, let me finish the day with another interesting one. Apparently (again from the Guardian) “Vincent Kompany signed a new five-year deal at Burnley at the beginning of the month after interest from Spurs and Chelsea.” So there we are: the choice of Burnley, Tottenham or Chelsea – which one offers the most hope? Pretty obvious really. Suave, smooth and scuppered in London, or a bunch of hearty roughs from up north?
