By Tony Attwood
As you will know if you have been paying attention, Manchester City face 115 charges against them, brought, in effect, by their fellow clubs in the Prem,ier League. Nothing has happened in the case for over a year. The last we heard was that ManC said that if found guilty of anything, they would sue the Premier League out of existence. Our thought was that the rest of the league ought to resign from the League before ManC has a chance to do that, and set up a new league without the ManCs in it.
So now we’ve had a four-year investigation, 115 allegations of foul play, and a statement of defiance from the club saying in effect, “touch us and we will destroy you.” Which is rather different from just saying “not guilty.”
Of course, I am not a barrister or judge, and my engagement with the legal system has been two bouts of jury duty (once at the Old Bailey for three months, once for four days at Northampton Crown Court) plus once pleading extenuating circumstances in a “driving without due care and attention” in a county court case. (I made the judge laugh, and he let me off with a five-pound fine and a warning).
So there we are, that’s my legal experience, which clearly shows I am not in the slightest way qualified to say if the Mancs did disguise payments made by the owners as sponsorship money, or paid bonuses to players and management which were not declared as they should be.
But I am told by some in the know that the judgment was reached in September 2024, around the time that ManC made the threat against the rest of the league concerning what happens if they are found guilty of anything. Other cases (Everton, Forest etc) have come and gone, but this one is still there. We sit, and we wait.
The only rumour of note since the start has been that the person behind organising all the alleged illegal sponsorship payments was Jaber Mohamed, a side man of Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who now runs Abu Dhabi (what with it not being a democracy and all).
So we still wait, but as we wait, thoughts have turned elsewhere – in particular to the issue of how much clubs pay in wages to staff, including players, and how that relates to the income of each club. And this is important, because obviously the more you are willing to pay, the better the players you get. But then we are back to the question, “Where did the money come from?”
Now, various figures circulating suggest that the percentage of income paid out in salaries ranges from 74% for West Ham United down to 44% at Tottenham Hotspur.
But such figures of course need a bit of looking at. West Ham can afford to pay 74% because they pay what in technical financial tersm is known as “bugger all” for their ground, having been begged to take it off the state’s hands by Boris Johnson when he was Prime Minister.
In fact, in terms of a high percentage of income going to wages, the top and bottom of the range among the big clubs is as below, and it is important to remember the rules here, which are….
Clubs can spend a maximum of 85% of their revenue on player costs (wages, transfer fees, agents). We only have the wages figures here In 2024/25 Arsenal spent around £100m in transfer fees and received about £80m for sales. But please do note that different sources give very different figures in this regard.
Additionally, we have to remember that clubs playing in European competitions are restricted by UEFA’s rules to a 70% of their revenue spent on player costs, which makes Chelsea, Villa and West Ham’s positions look extremely dodgy. But of course, there may be all sorts of special circumstances that I don’t know about. This is merely the data I can find: I didn’t do the research.
| Club | Wages per annum | Income Percentage spent on wages |
| Paris St Germain | £457m | 65% |
| Barcelona | £442m | 54% |
| Real Madrid | £429m | 44% |
| Liverpool | £421m | 60% |
| Manchester City | £397m | 57% |
| Bayern Munich | £376m | 52% |
| Chelsea | £353m | 72% |
| Manchester United | £340m | 51% |
| Arsenal | £338m | 49% |
| Tottenham Hots | £249m, | 44% |
| Aston Villa | £268m | 71% |
| West Ham United | £172m | 72% |
So, these figures above are estimates based on information revealed by clubs and then reported in the media. And it would appear that clubs have to provide significant levels of evidence to back up their figures, and Uefa then compares the details for the clubs that has bought with the data from the club that has sold each player. Quite simply, selling clubs want to maximise the income received for each sale to help explain their expenditure, and buying clubs like to make out that they have paid less to avoid overstepping the amount they are allowed to spend on players.
Ideally, spending on players should not be much more than 50% of income, which makes PSG, Chelsea and Villa look somewhat dodgy, but like West Ham, they might have a good explanation.
And a final footnote, the figures quoted here are those that are publicly available and generally quoted – you may well be able to find variant amounts quoted elsewhere..
