United to introduce a wage structure capped at 200k per week

acnumber9

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The problem with bonus type of salary, should it be based on teams performance or individual?

Should Martial and Rashford get the same bonus?
Exactly. A salary cap can’t work in the modern game. It’s as likely to breed resentment as the alternative.
 

AndySmith1990

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Learning from past mistakes? Progress. It's about time wages were capped to reasonable levels
 

PSV

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There's no big issue making a £200k base cap if the incentives are good.

If we tied it up to our actual appearance fee as a team (PL share) and our prize money we'd have a decent structure.

That way a player could range from £200k (no games) to £5-600k or even more (multi-trophy winner) on the same basic terms.

Normally we'd then get rid of the 200k players. The problem I see with a system like this is we'd end up just giving 200k to literally anyone.

The problem with bonus type of salary, should it be based on teams performance or individual?

Should Martial and Rashford get the same bonus?
I'd guess both.

If team does well there's a higher total cache.
Then the cache would be split across participation across the campaign.
 

McTerminator

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Terrible move, are they serious they won’t pay 500k/week if Mbappe is willing to come at that wage?

Just because things didn’t work out with a 36yo Ronaldo, doesn’t mean we should not try to sign a 25yo Ronaldo if such a player becomes available.
or Sanchez. It’s about time we stopped giving silly wages.
 

Son

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I don’t see how we could attract world class players with a 200 k ceiling. There are roughly 20 PL players with salaries above that. Some of them clearly not worth the money, but many of them are PL finest players. We would simply not be able to sign players like Varane and Casemiro with a 200k ceiling.
Both of those earn less than 200k or 200k and we sign them regardless. It’s a lot of money and the bonus rights at United will probably be higher than maybe any other club.
 

Gycraig

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I believe RedCafe is only left wing till we start talking about Manchester United players :lol:. This is a terrible idea and players should be paid what people are willing to spend on their talents as it should be in any industry.
If they want to go to other clubs instead and earn more they can, nearly every player we have paid massive wages to haven’t even come close to justifying it over the long term and seems to cause problems every time.

We paid Sanchez high wages suddenly everyone else wanted parity and why wouldn’t they, same with Ronaldos wages apparently causing problems in the changing rooms.

Players could still earn 3-400k a month with a 200k salary cap, it would just be the top players who are still performing, if they play shit they sit on the bench and earn 200k
 

MegadrivePerson

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I think we are saying that we categorically don’t want an mbappe with this announcement. I see it positively. Big clubs need to clamp down on fees so football remains vibrant.
It will only work if all clubs follow suit though.

United are in danger of becoming a feeder club if they do this.
 

CloneMC16

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I don't think we need a base cap on salaries, but offering 350k plus was a bit crazy. I don't even think it's the players that have been on over 200k that have been the main issue. It's been our mid players that we give 100/150k to that we've had the main problems getting rid of.

The article says Casemiro is in the 180/200k bracket. I'm sure when he signed the media were telling us he was being offered around 300/350k.
 

Still ill

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Ten Hag rapidly moving towards beatification. Love this. Anyone who won't come to United for 200000 grand a week can feck off.
 

Josep Dowling

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Won’t work. At least 8 players already earn £200k plus and it will make us less competitive in the transfer window. I get the premise of it but a blanket waged structure like that will fail. My issue is giving players like Martial and Shaw mega contracts when the team hasn’t achieved any thing. Or giving Sancho £350k a week before he’s even won a decent trophy in his young career.
 

Garethw

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Learning from past mistakes? Progress. It's about time wages were capped to reasonable levels
This is all very well if it was capped throughout the whole of football, but it isn’t. All this does is put us at a massive disadvantage when negotiating the acquisition of world class players.

The sensible thing to do would be to stop giving mediocre players astronomical wages.
 

Kazi

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Great idea but honestly speaking, I think £200k a bit too low for the likes of Casemiro and maybe Bruno/Varane
 

A-man

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Exactly. A salary cap can’t work in the modern game. It’s as likely to breed resentment as the alternative.
Yes it will be just as “unfair” and bring even worse problems to the squad.
I think Liverpool tried but then Salah became one of the best in the world and they needed to math his salary to keep him, wtf said VvD I’m the best defender in the world how come I have the same salary as Maguire?
 

redshaw

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Doesn't sound quite true to me, Rashford won't be resigning at 200k even if bonuses make it higher.

I can see us looking to not get carried away in future if De Gea and Sancho wages are to be believed, we need to be more careful.
 

OrcaFat

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As many have said, it’s not that we pay good players too much, the problem is we pay average players too much.

The underlying problem is poor scouting and poor development of players from within the academy. Because we don’t have a good conveyer belt of good value signings and academy graduates, it has been seen as easier to keep giving ever bigger contracts to existing players (who would struggle to get anywhere near that money if we let them go) than to replace those players.

I don’t think a salary cap helps at all. Just make sure that when you give the big dollar out, you’re giving it to the right guy. And make sure you don’t fill your squad with mediocre players (which we have been a little guilty of in the last decade), which goes back to scouting and development; not easy but those are the two things that we need to get right.
 

A-man

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I'd guess both.

If team does well there's a higher total cache.
Then the cache would be split across participation across the campaign.
One of many problems with individual bonuses is that it gives you selfish players. It is also impossible to evaluate a player fully with only measurable data. How do you evaluate two centre backs where one has performed well and the other not so good? And if you evaluate the team, it is not fair either.


Both of those earn less than 200k or 200k and we sign them regardless. It’s a lot of money and the bonus rights at United will probably be higher than maybe any other club.
Never seen a report of them making 200 k or less. 300-350 more likely.
 

Jericho

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It's not a perfect solution but it shows the club are thinking the right way. It might need some tweaking but for now it's a step in the right direction.

And if we do end up becoming less competitive for players demanding upwards of 200k then so be it IMO. It's about time we focused a little more on scouting.
 

OrcaFat

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It's not a perfect solution but it shows the club are thinking the right way. It might need some tweaking but for now it's a step in the right direction.

And if we do end up becoming less competitive for players demanding upwards of 200k then so be it IMO. It's about time we focused a little more on scouting.
Scouting needs to be better (much better) but I don’t think that has anything to do with what we decide to pay the very best players.

And we can’t just say “oh yeah, we’re just going to scout better from now on”. I fully agree it would be great to scout our way to the top - it can be done but it’s very hard.
 

RuudTom83

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For argument sack…who in the squad would get more than 200k elsewhere.

There are not many, possible Rashford if he left on a free transfer.

But if a transfer fee was involved for anyone in the squad, then the amount of clubs who could pay 60-80 million and then substantially more than 200k a week on top! would be a very very small list.

The benefits far outweigh the drawbacks imo.
 

acnumber9

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For argument sack…who in the squad would get more than 200k elsewhere.

There are not many, possible Rashford if he left on a free transfer.

But if a transfer fee was involved for anyone in the squad, then the amount of clubs who could pay 60-80 million and then substantially more than 200k a week on top! would be a very very small list.

The benefits far outweigh the drawbacks imo.
Every club in the world would be trying to sign Rashford. Free or not.
 

OrcaFat

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For argument sack…who in the squad would get more than 200k elsewhere.

There are not many, possible Rashford if he left on a free transfer.

But if a transfer fee was involved for anyone in the squad, then the amount of clubs who could pay 60-80 million and then substantially more than 200k a week on top! would be a very very small list.

The benefits far outweigh the drawbacks imo.
It would be a small list, you’re right, but there are no benefits to a cap.

We can very easily stop paying too much to players who aren’t good enough to justify it without having an arbitrary number beyond which we won’t pay for a player who does justify it.

Yeah Rashford would probably command over £200k on the open market. Maybe not that many of the others. We definitely are paying too much to some of our players. But when you’re trying to attract a player like Casemiro, say, you have to make an offer that can’t be refused.

A player’s “open market salary value” is not always going to be exactly equal to the salary offer needed to get them to leave the club they are at and come to us.

A cap will sometimes prevent us from making those offers (if it doesn’t then it’s not a real cap at all). It’s hard to make a case that Casemiro is not worth (to us) what we’re paying him and with a cap we might not have got him. I think we’re going to need a couple more players in that bracket if we’re serious about winning again.

The big mistake we keep making is paying over “market value” under new contracts to players who are already at the club. And we don’t need to be talking about £200k there.

We don’t need a cap we just need to pay what’s needed (and no more) on a case by case basis.
 

Lentwood

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But what makes us, in this case, more likely to win trophies when we have so much competition within our league. It's good in practice but players are still going to look at their best offer and go there - unless we are dominating the league or they are United fans, they will have no qualms going to our rivals who offer a bit more
That's the theory but its not backed up by the actual reality.

If what your saying is true, why didnt peak Salah, Mane, Allisson, Van Dijk, Robertson, TAA, Henderson etc...leave Klopp's Liverpool to join United, Chelsea, City or Barcelona? Do you think if United have offered Salah £500K per week he'd have joined us, for example?

Likewise, why didnt Scholes, Giggs, Keane, Neville etc...move to Real Madrid, Juventus or AC Milan when we had the wage cap in-place under the previous regime and they could have earned for more?

Why didnt players like Phillip Lahm or Manuel Nueur leave Bayern to join City or Barcelona?

Why don't top players flock en masse to places like Saudi Arabia? Why didnt more players go to China during their boom or that megabucks Russian team?

There will always be exceptions that prove the rule. Yes, there will always be some players who will go anywhere for a buck, but we should avoid those players anyway.

In general, if players are paid well enough (i.e. not grossly underpaid), they are happy and playing regular football and their team is regularly competing for top honours, they wont leave.

Likewise, most of us on this forum could leave our jobs today and earn 10/20% more in another role. I am currently paid a fair chunk below market rate because I chose to go and work for some old friends last year rather than stay in my large corporate sales job.

Footballers are human, like the rest of us. They have motives beyond money
 

norm87cro

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Well it is a double edged sword IMO. On one hand examples like Sanchez, Di Maria or Pogba won't happen. On the other players like Zlatan, Rooney and even CR7 last season pretty much earned their pay.
The issue is creating a culture of EARNING the fat paycheck on the pitch and it will motivate all the other players in the squad.
It seems to me the Glazers are just being cheap.
 

Tiber

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Useful press release when they want an excuse not to chase top level players.

Burney and Watford strikers will fit in nicely
 

Stadjer

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Well it is a double edged sword IMO. On one hand examples like Sanchez, Di Maria or Pogba won't happen. On the other players like Zlatan, Rooney and even CR7 last season pretty much earned their pay.
The issue is creating a culture of EARNING the fat paycheck on the pitch and it will motivate all the other players in the squad.
It seems to me the Glazers are just being cheap.
Pogba was in his first three season very much deserving of 200k a week. He played very well, scored and assisted while in a crap team with a horrible manager. Di Maria just came from a fantastic season at Madrid and MotM of the CL final so he wasnt going to sign for 200k or less. Di Maria couldnt settle in England and didnt want to come to Manchester United but the player Di Maria was certainly deserving of more than 200k a week. He was a world class player before and after his Manchester United period. He was even during his first few Manchester United games.
 

Zen86

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Interesting development and feels like the right thing considering the mess we've found ourselves in recent years. Players should be here because they want to be here, not because we pay them the most money. We might well miss out on some high profile names, but breaking the pay structure does cause problems in the dressing room and leads to escalating problems with wage bills (ie "if he earns that, then I should get that too"). Either way, you don't need to sign superstar players on massive wages to be a competitive team.

Additional bonuses based on performance creates the right kind of message and provides a level of equity amongst the players.
 

norm87cro

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Pogba was in his first three season very much deserving of 200k a week. He played very well, scored and assisted while in a crap team with a horrible manager. Di Maria just came from a fantastic season at Madrid and MotM of the CL final so he wasnt going to sign for 200k or less. Di Maria couldnt settle in England and didnt want to come to Manchester United but the player Di Maria was certainly deserving of more than 200k a week. He was a world class player before and after his Manchester United period. He was even during his first few Manchester United games.
Pogba crap? Again? Mate you should join the Juve forum because he is not playing here anymore and rightly so. I was just making a few examples of high salaries going wrong and they did. Di Maria should not have joined then because I do think he is quality but ultimatley if you are being paid a ridicilous amount of money I really dont care how you fancy your life in England or not. You are supposed to be a professional.
The point of my post was that players should earn their 350 000 pounds a week through their example on the pitch not taking such a pay for granted and this club as a temporary location as Di Maria did.
 

bringbackbebe

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Think they mean "200k guaranteed" + additional pay based on performance of the individual & team. For eg, qualifying for the Champions League will fetch a player 25% extra and so on. Casemiro/Varane/Sancho etc are around 300k "total pay" and not "guaranteed pay". The only exception looks to be De Gea (and Ronaldo previously). Rashford/Shaw's contracts will be in this region as well - which is reasonable.
 

MegadrivePerson

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For argument sack…who in the squad would get more than 200k elsewhere.

There are not many, possible Rashford if he left on a free transfer.

But if a transfer fee was involved for anyone in the squad, then the amount of clubs who could pay 60-80 million and then substantially more than 200k a week on top! would be a very very small list.

The benefits far outweigh the drawbacks imo.
That probably says more about the quality of the squad though!

This strategy means that we won't be able to sign the likes of Bellingham, Enzo Fernandez, Harry Kane or essentially any players that City, Real Madrid or Chelsea want.
 

golden_blunder

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I’d love to see other clubs follow United’s lead here and for us to be leading the change. It would work better if others follow suit

Oh can we also introduce a penalty clause to give money back (or to a nominated charity) if you make big errors.. I’m thinking of a couple who might not be left with much money :)
 

Wrecking ralf

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I’m glad this is happening. Having mad wages just increases the chance of people half arsing all season cause they’re still getting paid a wedge. All clubs should have a salary cap and then clubs are able to implement their own bonuses based on the successes the club achieve that season. 300-500k a week to help the club finish 6th is pathetic.
 

Yakuza_devils

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Glazers would be very happy with this wage structure. They would never have thought that many supporters love this idea especially when they have been looting the club for so many years.
 

Sarni

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£10m a year is going to be well short for top tier players, I don’t think this has any real substance to it.