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Clause for concern

7 min read
by ThinkSpurs
As rumours surface that Christian Eriksen is demanding a new deal worth £150k/week to stay at Tottenham, ThinkSpurs makes his debut on The Fighting Cock by discussing the crazy world that is football finance.

Picture the scene. Tech giants Google see promise in a young computer genius. They bring him in for intern work for the summer, fund his way through college, but on the day he comes in with his great new idea, and tells them he wants them to invest in him, they show him the door.

Fast forward four years. Google is still going strong, but the young entrepreneur they shoved out the door has prospered, and the idea they once rejected is now a thriving business Google wants to buy for £100 million. Pretty embarrassing for Google right?

Well, the above scenario is entirely fictitious, but change Google to ‘Manchester United’ and young entrepreneur to ‘Pogba’ and it becomes a story we’ve just seen play out before our eyes. The Premier League Giants last week forked out a record fee to bring back a youth academy reject they let walk out the door in 2012 for nothing. The worst part is, very few people are even shocked by this – it’s just the latest example of football finance descending into lunacy.

Since football became professional in 1885, it took until 2001 until a player was paid the eye-watering weekly wage of £100k/week (this is thought to be Sol Campbell after his transfer to Woolwich). However, in the 15 years since then, numerous players worldwide have more than doubled that number, and with every passing day, a new player signs a deal to take home a six-figure wage every week.

But what does all this have to do with Tottenham Hotspur?

Tottenham Hotspur’s management have worked exceptionally well to build such a healthy club/business in a league as competitive as the EPL. This is in no small part down to the dealings of Chairman Daniel Levy, who has both infuriated and delighted Spurs fans during his tenure. Levy’s (in)famous reputation as a notoriously shrewd businessman has meant Tottenham have often been left wanting, rather than receiving, marquee signings over the years due to a reluctance of paying hefty transfer fees and a stern persistence of sticking to a rigid, club-friendly wages structure.

[linequote]The upside is, Levy’s stewardship has also left Tottenham in a very healthy financial situation, and fans now have an exciting, well-assembled team to watch[/linequote]

Many will remember Harry Redknapp’s final Spurs campaign where a title chase beckoned. Carlos Tevez and Gary Cahill were linked to Spurs in the Winter transfer window, yet in the end it was the bargain bucket pair of Louis Saha and Ryan Nelsen who arrived at White Hart Lane and the title aspirations evaporated. However, the upside is, Levy’s stewardship has also left Tottenham in a very healthy financial situation, and fans now have an exciting, well-assembled team to watch each week under the guidance of one of the games brightest managerial prospects. Add to that the prospect of moving into a new state-of-the-art stadium in 2-3 years time, and suddenly Levy’s workings start to look like magic!

All of this has become possible because Levy has taken the high road regarding club finance, in complete contrast to clubs like Man United, Man City and Chelsea, who have attempted to fix every problem in their recent history by throwing money at it, with no regard for the extremely dangerous problem they are creating.

Despite being the home to numerous top quality internationals, it’s believed that no player at White Hart Lane currently earns more than £100k/week. One such player is Christian Eriksen – the Danish playmaker who has been a shining light in the Tottenham team since his move from Ajax. Eriksen is currently believed to be earning around £60,000 a week at Tottenham.

In almost any other profession, this would equate to being at the absolute peak of your field. Experts like Doctors or Engineers could only dream of a paycheque so hefty, yet in the crazy world of modern football, Eriksen’s wages are said to be ‘modest’. Therefore, this week’s rumour that Eriksen is holding out for a new contract at Spurs worth £150k/week should come as a surprise to nobody.

The fact is, I don’t blame Eriksen, and no Spurs fan should. The attacking midfielder could arguably call himself Spurs most consistent high performer over the past few years, and he is among the finest attacking midfielders in the Premier League if not World football. At 24, Eriksen is moving into the next stage of his career, and it’s his right to seek out a contract that reflects his quality.

[linequote]Eriksen need only look at his peers at his position around the league and see players inferior to him such as Memphis Depay, Raheem Sterling or Samir Nasri earn significantly more than him, and you can see why he could be aggrieved[/linequote]

A 30% wage increase as reward for good performance in your job would be a dream for you or me, and for Christian Eriksen it would mean a bump up to wages of £80,000 a week. Yet Eriksen need only look at his peers at his position around the league and see players inferior to him such as Memphis Depay, Raheem Sterling or Samir Nasri earn significantly more than him, and you can see why he could be aggrieved. At the end of the day, the Premier League is an entertainment business, and the players are the stars of the show.

Therefore for Eriksen, £150k/week wage demands are not about needing the money, but illustrating his worth as one of the leagues star performers.

Spurs have done extremely well to assemble the talented squad they have now, and do it for affordable prices. Yet to keep this talent in the long term, they’ll have to abandon their wise financial tradition, and instead follow the likes of Manchester United and Manchester City into financial madness.

As a fan of Tottenham and Eriksen himself, I do hope the club eventually caves in to demands and pay Eriksen what he’s worth. I expect The Dane to lessen his demands, and a deal of £120k/week to be agreed, but even so, Tottenham’s famed rigid pay-structure will have taken a hit, and I can’t help but wonder where it will end.

I understand that the increasing wages and transfer fees in football are; to an extent, relative to the extra money coming in, but surely this exponential rise in prices can’t continue forever without repercussion?

[linequote]Convincing a team like Man United to agree to a salary cap they share with the likes of Hull City may prove to be an impossible task at this stage of the game[/linequote]

Many United fans have justified the Pogba deal, by pointing out that Man United’s earnings from are higher than ever. Others have justified the signing, by simply saying ‘it’s not my money!’, however this seems to ignore that every few years as another average player earns a week what a fan may earn in three years, ticket and jersey prices will rise, and fans will become more and more detached from the clubs they love so much.

Solution?

The wheels may already be moving too fast to pull this financial disaster in football back from the brink, yet maybe there are lessons football could learn from other Pro Sports to help limit the damage.

American football sees similarly dizzying salaries paid to its top stars. Recently, young Quarterback Andrew Luck signed a record-breaking new deal that will see him paid around $26 million a year (On par with the likes of Messi and Ronaldo). However, these figures are limited to a select few in the league, as each team is forced to work under a set salary cap, which sets a limit on the amount of financial muscle any one team can flex.

Add to this, transfer fees are non-existent in the Sport, with player moves only happening as a result of trades, or at the end of a contract. Teams instead rely heavily on developing their own young players instead of fixing problems with cash. The result is a league where teams remain on a similar level to each other, with no handful of super heavyweight teams distancing themselves from the rest of the pack.

The more football distances itself from reality with incredible figures and fees, the more sense a change to a system like the above seems to make. However, convincing a team like Man United to agree to a salary cap they share with the likes of Hull City may prove to be an impossible task at this stage of the game.

So after spending more than a staggering combined sum of £500 million this summer, Premier League teams set out this weekend to write the first chapter of the 2016/17 season. I just wonder if this story will have a happy ending.

All views and opinions expressed in this article are the views and opinions of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of The Fighting Cock. We offer a platform for fans to commit their views to text and voice their thoughts. Football is a passionate game and as long as the views stay within the parameters of what is acceptable, we encourage people to write, get involved and share their thoughts on the mighty Tottenham Hotspur.

I'm an Avid Spurs fan who writes articles that I enjoy writing, and that you hopefully enjoy reading!

9 Comments

  1. Chris
    15/08/2016 @ 4:29 pm

    Assuming we buckle to Mr Eriksen’s demands for £120k as you suggest, how does Levy explain to most of the other first team players that the frankly inconsistent, often ineffective and sometimes invisible Eriksen is worth paying that when they aren’t? Does he deny the more consistent players a rise, or give them all a rise? As I see it, Eriksen would earn more elsewhere and could double or triple his money were he to leave. But I don’t believe the club should break the structure for him.

    • ThinkSpurs
      15/08/2016 @ 10:25 pm

      Hi Chris,

      You raise a good point in your comment, and really my article is in total agreement with it!

      Basically, if we open the wallet for Eriksen.. where does it stop?

      As for question whether Eriksen is worth the steep pay-rise, the alternative would be letting him walk, and this sends out the wrong message from the club I believe. Tottenham have assembled a very competitive young team right now, and to allow a first team regular to walk out the door now would be a step backwards. We certainly don’t want to give off the vibe of being a selling club like Southampton, who press the reset button every few years! That’s just my view on the matter anyway!

  2. Will
    15/08/2016 @ 4:34 pm

    I am sorry but you are wrong he is NOT consistent enough to be worth 100k let alone 120K. he guts out of 50/50s is often missing vs packed defences and his free kicks seem to have gone “off the boil”. His contribution currently and for the last dozen or so matches of last season is far less than normal. IMO he needs to have a challenger for his position in the team as he does not work hard enough and is too comfortable and we should buy someone who can push him/replace him if necessary. Giving him 120k would start a financial avalanche and IMO is an incredibly stupid suggestion.

    • ThinkSpurs
      15/08/2016 @ 10:30 pm

      Hi Will,

      I agree with you, based on how Spurs run the club, Eriksen is probably not playing at a £150k/week level. However, the problem (as the article suggests) arises when a team like United or City pay a player inferior to Eriksen money in that ballpark.

      From a Spurs perspective, Eriksen would find it very difficult to say he deserves a higher pay than Lloris or Alderweireld for example, but if he were point to midfielders around the league like Walcott or Sterling, he would certainly have an argument.

      It leaves Tottenham in a very difficult position. Spurs could stand firm beside their pay-structure, and tell Eriksen he is free to find himself a new home. However, this sends out a poor message, that Tottenham are happy to sell their first teamers, and I would hate for the likes of Lloris to question the club’s ambition!

      As for the other option: Paying Eriksen, this open’s another batch of problems, as you could then have a handful of Tottenham stars knocking on Levy’s door looking for similar deals, and this is exactly the fear I’m trying to express in the article!

  3. Ray
    15/08/2016 @ 5:14 pm

    Nicely written article but correct me if I’m wrong. Didnt both Eriksen and his agent distance themselves from the article which surfaced in Friday regarding Eriksens extravagant wage demands? The player himself tweeted after the Everton game that you shouldn’t believe what you read in the papers. Equally important, his agent stating that they never talk to the press, that his client isn’t all about money and that Christian is very happy at Spurs? This makes me think that skullduggery in the press is at work here, merely hours before the start of the new season, they chose to upset one of Spurs major players. Again, a no name source is referred to by them. We are all aware that Eriksen rejected a new contract, fair enough, he isn’t the first player to do that, he wants more money, don’t we all. Interestingly wIth both penniless Inter Milan and the Pogba rich Juventus said to be keen on acquiring his services and are monitoring the situation closely, a new twist has now been added to the story. We shall see who’s telling the truth here pretty soon. The gullible amongst us as the author of this article appears to be, can believe what they want, it’s their right to do so but the amount of nonsense written in the press on a daily basis, has made me very cynical about almost if not anything these people write. Spurs won’t run to the press about a players wage demands, Daniel Levy isn’t Harry Redknapp who never missed an opportunity to use the press for his own gains and I doubt that Christian Eriksen would stoop so low either.

    • ThinkSpurs
      15/08/2016 @ 10:42 pm

      Hi Ray,

      I very aware that 90% of the articles written in the sport pages during transfer season are entirely made up by journalists to fill column inches, and you may well be right that this Eriksen situation is a perfect example of this. Also, I find it very promising that Eriksen seems to have distanced himself from these rumours since they surfaced. However, the reason I wrote the article wasn’t because I bought these rumours hook, line and sinker, I wrote it because this sort of rumour raises an issue that is definitely on the horizon.

      Whether or not this Eriksen contract hold-out is true, every time an average PL player like Bolasie, Walcott, Ayew or Stones gets a bumper pay-rise, it’s inevitable that Spurs stars will also start wondering if they’re also due a raise. If it’s not Eriksen now, it could well be him soon. Or else it could be Lloris, or Jan or Toby or Dembele. And if they do come to Levy looking for a pay-rise, it doesn’t mean they want to leave the club or that they have any problem with Tottenham, it simply means they want to pay what they are worth relative to their peers!

      I hope you’re right, and that this Eriksen issue is nonsense, but as long as the likes of City and Chelsea keep paying over the odds, the days of financial lunacy won’t be far away!

  4. papiilon
    15/08/2016 @ 7:24 pm

    Eriksen currently on £60k per week? What’s your source? Newspapers write he’s on £35k per week.
    Anyway Eriksen has poured scorn on the £150k per story.
    The only way Eriksen would get £150k per week, or even £120k, is if he stayed at Spurs and ran down his contract so he could leave Spurs on a free transfer. That’s what Campbell did to get his big salary from Arsenal.
    Nobody is going to pay Eriksen more than £100k per week and pay Spurs a big transfer fee as well (say over £30m) since he is not that good.

    • Ad Rich
      15/08/2016 @ 7:48 pm

      It’s about the market.
      Spot on from Papiilon. Eriksen is a very good player with plenty of potential but will ONLY be worth £150k a week if an elite club puts in a firm offer (£30m+) AND Spurs are not willing to let him go.
      So either the agent negotiates a more realistic deal (with bonus incentives for consistent performances) or runs the contract down – in which case Levy won’t hesitate to loan Eriksen out and sign a replacement whilst the window is open.
      No cause for worry.

  5. Jonathan Roberts
    18/08/2016 @ 4:09 pm

    It’s difficult because the team are all level and one player who is good but it’s more important to the team than Alderweireld, Rose, Kane etc. Never mind the rest of the market, the dressing room would change drastically and it would begin a snowball effect.

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