Alessia Russo | leaves United for Arsenal

ForeverRed1

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If she’s a United fan and we’re on an upward trajectory.. why leave? Do we really pay that much less than the likes of arsenal and Chelsea?
 

DOTA

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If she’s a United fan and we’re on an upward trajectory.. why leave? Do we really pay that much less than the likes of arsenal and Chelsea?
I think the suspicion is we indeed do but we shall find out, I think, as I agree if she chooses to leave for Arsenal it's probably because we ain't offering what she's worth.
 

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I think Batlle would have left anyway. Barca is a dream move for her regardless of the pay scale.

Russo either just wants what she feels she's worth or wants the project to be more promising. Either way, it's probably about investment.
 

Ayush_reddevil

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If United have any seriousness about this team then Russo has to stay. Not only because of the fact that she is a very good player but also because she is a young English star and there are so many young fans who look up to her. I swear at the game on Saturday her & Toone had the most shirts in the crowd and the Russo song was sung the most. Big step back if she goes specially with Ona leaving too
 

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I really don't think a better contract offer will be on the table in time. Even if the ownership issue is sorted, I doubt the club will be able to make a financial decision like this quickly enough to offer an improved contract. They'd have other things to look into first before considering the women's team and that's a real shame.
 

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I really don't think a better contract offer will be on the table in time. Even if the ownership issue is sorted, I doubt the club will be able to make a financial decision like this quickly enough to offer an improved contract. They'd have other things to look into first before considering the women's team and that's a real shame.
Even if the budget increase for the women’s team would be the first thing they’d do, it would be too late.
 

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I like her too much, she's going to Greenwood me and end up at city down the line

Man, how I loved me some Greenwood
 

Gordon S

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Anyone know what kind of wages our top players are on? Couldn´t find any number when googling
 

top1whoisman

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Anyone know what kind of wages our top players are on? Couldn´t find any number when googling
Don’t know exact figures for our players but WSL players’ wages range from as low as £20k/year to £250k/year. The average salary in the league being around £30k/year shows us it’s only a fair few who make even big-ish money. That’s your Miedemas, Kerrs, Shaws, Meads etc.

It’s reported that our domestic rivals have offered about double the wages we’ve offered to Russo. Same thing when it comes to top foreign clubs with Batlle.

Which makes me estimate that our offers for both players have been around £100-150k/year = £2000-3000k/w.
 
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Gordon S

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Don’t know exact figures for our players but WSL players’ wages range from as low as £20k/year to £250k/year. The average salary in the league being around £30k/year shows us it’s only a fair few who make even big-ish money. That’s your Miedemas, Shaws, Meads etc.

It’s reported that our domestic rivals have offered about double the wages we’ve offered to Russo. Same thing when it comes to top foreign clubs with Batlle.

Which makes me estimate that our offers for both players have been around £100-150k/year = £2000-3000k/w.
Thanks!

Just feels incredible that the wage should be any issue for us here.
 

top1whoisman

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Champ

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Is the salary cap still a thing on the WSL, if it is then this is what could be affecting us.

For sure the Owners could happily pump in more money to allow the salaries to rise, as I am sure has been the case at Chelsea and City, but that would then create an unsustainable business model with no room for error.

Whilst United need to carry on growing, they can't just chuck more money at it (the owners have actually spent a fair bit on the women's team already), they have to be sensible and rely on the fact these players want to be here.
Champions League football should be enough for players to want to stay, and another season of growth should hopefully happen.
 

TMS

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Is the salary cap still a thing on the WSL, if it is then this is what could be affecting us.

For sure the Owners could happily pump in more money to allow the salaries to rise, as I am sure has been the case at Chelsea and City, but that would then create an unsustainable business model with no room for error.

Whilst United need to carry on growing, they can't just chuck more money at it (the owners have actually spent a fair bit on the women's team already), they have to be sensible and rely on the fact these players want to be here.
Champions League football should be enough for players to want to stay, and another season of growth should hopefully happen.
Erm hasn't our womens team make a profit to date? I'm sure I've seen that before, so would hardly say that's the owners spending a fair bit, and just imagine where they'd be if those owners didn't get rid of the team in the first place?

Can we please not blame the players when they're being offered significantly more money elsewhere when it's not like in the men's game where they'd be minted wherever they went. This is another issue that once again stems from our awful ownership that don't actually care about success.
 

top1whoisman

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Is the salary cap still a thing on the WSL, if it is then this is what could be affecting us.

For sure the Owners could happily pump in more money to allow the salaries to rise, as I am sure has been the case at Chelsea and City, but that would then create an unsustainable business model with no room for error.

Whilst United need to carry on growing, they can't just chuck more money at it (the owners have actually spent a fair bit on the women's team already), they have to be sensible and rely on the fact these players want to be here.
Champions League football should be enough for players to want to stay, and another season of growth should hopefully happen.
Once again: Not many female players ever gets a chance to make the kind of money that would help them secure a future for themselves, let alone their families, possible kids etc. If they get one chance to sign a big contract, no-one should have any complaints about them doing so. I'd say 100% of us would jump at the chance to change employers if someone offered a 100% raise to do the same job.
 

Champ

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Erm hasn't our womens team make a profit to date? I'm sure I've seen that before, so would hardly say that's the owners spending a fair bit, and just imagine where they'd be if those owners didn't get rid of the team in the first place?

Can we please not blame the players when they're being offered significantly more money elsewhere when it's not like in the men's game where they'd be minted wherever they went. This is another issue that once again stems from our awful ownership that don't actually care about success.
The women's team have been backed heavily by the owners, new training pitches for example. Lots of talk at the start of this season about how to increase the budget.
Which is why I found it strange when people were complaining about opening up the ability to buy season tickets on here.

The owners could in theory just throw money at the women's team to increase the budget and allow for greater wages, but that wouldn't be sustainable in the long nor short term.

The complete contrast in how people think regards the women's team and men's team is intriguing to me.
Yes context has to come into play somewhat but we have people crowing about how the mens team are over paid and we give out high contracts too easily and often,
Yet the women's team we want the owners to chuck as much money as possible to tie players up on high contracts despite the fact it will have detrimental impact on the team as a whole (less income, less profitability, less wages to go around, less transfer money to spend etc).
 

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RORY65

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The women's team have been backed heavily by the owners, new training pitches for example. Lots of talk at the start of this season about how to increase the budget.
Which is why I found it strange when people were complaining about opening up the ability to buy season tickets on here.

The owners could in theory just throw money at the women's team to increase the budget and allow for greater wages, but that wouldn't be sustainable in the long nor short term.

The complete contrast in how people think regards the women's team and men's team is intriguing to me.
Yes context has to come into play somewhat but we have people crowing about how the mens team are over paid and we give out high contracts too easily and often,
Yet the women's team we want the owners to chuck as much money as possible to tie players up on high contracts despite the fact it will have detrimental impact on the team as a whole (less income, less profitability, less wages to go around, less transfer money to spend etc).
According to a Deloitte report earlier in the year United's women's team had the 2nd highest revenues in the world (behind Barcelona) in the 2021/22 season despite never having qualified for the Champions League at that point. On the other hand the club has the 5th largest budget in the WSL despite having finished 4th for 3 seasons in a row and now finishing 2nd. To claim that this team has been well backed by the owners (who don't spend a penny on anything to do with the club by the way) given that, as well as us losing our previous manager due to the shoddy facilities which they've only just started improving recently, is not right at all.

People criticise the way the men's team is run because we have the highest paid goalkeeper in the world, despite him not at best an average starting Premier League keeper these days, and spent the world record fee for a defender who now sits on the bench amongst numerous other baffling wastes of money. How is that comparable to losing England's starting striker or the best right back in the world(both of them in their early 20s) for free in part because we've not even got close to matching the offers they're getting from rival teams?
 

top1whoisman

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The women's team have been backed heavily by the owners, new training pitches for example. Lots of talk at the start of this season about how to increase the budget.
Which is why I found it strange when people were complaining about opening up the ability to buy season tickets on here.

The owners could in theory just throw money at the women's team to increase the budget and allow for greater wages, but that wouldn't be sustainable in the long nor short term.

The complete contrast in how people think regards the women's team and men's team is intriguing to me.
Yes context has to come into play somewhat but we have people crowing about how the mens team are over paid and we give out high contracts too easily and often,
Yet the women's team we want the owners to chuck as much money as possible to tie players up on high contracts despite the fact it will have detrimental impact on the team as a whole (less income, less profitability, less wages to go around, less transfer money to spend etc).
That's really generous of the owners as they could've simply trained in the car park.

We started exactly five years ago. Any company, men's football teams included, require a fair amount of investment in the start of their journeys. We could generate a lot more money from the women's team if we played more at OT. Guess who's responsible for that? Yes, the owners and higher-ups once again.

Of course we don't have to invest more and we can just keep on losing our best players and managers. Doubt that would bring more fans to the stands to generate more money but that's one way of operating too I guess.
 

TMS

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The women's team have been backed heavily by the owners, new training pitches for example. Lots of talk at the start of this season about how to increase the budget.
Which is why I found it strange when people were complaining about opening up the ability to buy season tickets on here.

The owners could in theory just throw money at the women's team to increase the budget and allow for greater wages, but that wouldn't be sustainable in the long nor short term.

The complete contrast in how people think regards the women's team and men's team is intriguing to me.
Yes context has to come into play somewhat but we have people crowing about how the mens team are over paid and we give out high contracts too easily and often,
Yet the women's team we want the owners to chuck as much money as possible to tie players up on high contracts despite the fact it will have detrimental impact on the team as a whole (less income, less profitability, less wages to go around, less transfer money to spend etc).
Can't tell if you're being purposely disingenuous or not? If investing in training facilities using club funds is being backed heavily by owners then that is a very generous definition. Surely if they are backing the womens team so heavily we wouldn't be making profits from the womens team right?

As others have said the size of our revenues compared to other womens teams and the size of our spending compared to other womens teams don't paint a picture of a team heavily backed by the owners. It instead paints a picture of a team that was forced upon the owners when it no longer became viable socially to not have a womens team. For the owners the team is a token to appease society and not something they actually care about other than as a way to generate more money.

And finally the mens team are criticised for offering wages well over the odds for players that wouldn't start for other top clubs and then struggling to sell them on because of those wages. This is the complete opposite situation where we have players that would start for most teams in the world yet we're offering them half their market value. We have the money to spend to keep them and revenues continue to climb, so I've no doubt offering them market value deals would be viable long term.
 

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Just shows how incredibly low budget the women's team have been given. And how good a job they've done with this in mind.
We’ve already lost a historical and talismanic leader (Casey Stoney) based on the club not being serious enough about competing. There are undoubtedly people involved directly in building the team (picked by Murtaugh?) who are doing a sound and very good job, but if the owners and Arnold doesn’t back it up to the levelto be expected from Man United, it will be a matter of time before that disintegrates. The best players, and the most ambitious people, will go where the commitment is mosr serious, top down.
 

cj_sparky

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Don’t know exact figures for our players but WSL players’ wages range from as low as £20k/year to £250k/year. The average salary in the league being around £30k/year shows us it’s only a fair few who make even big-ish money. That’s your Miedemas, Kerrs, Shaws, Meads etc.

It’s reported that our domestic rivals have offered about double the wages we’ve offered to Russo. Same thing when it comes to top foreign clubs with Batlle.

Which makes me estimate that our offers for both players have been around £100-150k/year = £2000-3000k/w.
Do you know if the WSL still has a 40% of turnover salary cap?
 

top1whoisman

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Okay, I don't know what our turnover is. But you'd like to think the Champions League qualification would provide a bit more money to offer in wages in that regard.
Looking at the attendance figures etc. from our rivals, I somehow doubt that their turnover is a 100% more than ours. Yet they can offer double wages to what we do.

Looking at @RORY65's post, we're second in the world when it comes to turnover, only behind Barca.
 

Lightbringer

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Do you know if the WSL still has a 40% of turnover salary cap?
Is this stipulated on the Womens Super League web page with all the details the teams have to follow? We definitely need to get our hands on that, our at least have someone smart study it and make a recap of it.
 

cj_sparky

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Looking at the attendance figures etc. from our rivals, I somehow doubt that their turnover is a 100% more than ours. Yet they can offer double wages to what we do.
I don't know all the financial stuff. The last figure I remember seeing for investment was the £1.5m back in our first season and £700k trickling down in sponsorship. Be interesting to know how much more others put in and how much ours has changed in the 4-5 years since. I'm sure I remember reading (or hearing on a broadcast) most of the top 6 are about investing 1.5% of the men's team turnover.
 

cj_sparky

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Is this stipulated on the Womens Super League web page with all the details the teams have to follow? We definitely need to get our hands on that, our at least have someone smart study it and make a recap of it.
I just remember there being noise about trying to get to the salary cap increased. A quick google only brings up info on a 40% cap.