Wayne Rooney’s new deal with Manchester United will be worth £130,000 per week before image rights and other bonuses when it is signed this summer. It’s the largest deal in the history of the club and reward for Rooney’s progression over the past season, where the former Evertonian scored 34 goals in all competitions for United.
But large as the deal is, Rooney is still some way behind the very top earners in Europe, with United benefiting from the players loyalty to the club after six years at Old Trafford and 282 games played.
The new deal, as yet unsigned and delayed while the Rooney’s fought a bitter court case against former agents Proactive over a disputed £4.3 million commission payment, will offer a substantial increase on the player’s current basic £90,000 per week contract.
Rooney effectively won the court case yesterday, with the striker ordered to pay just £90,000 “restitutional remedy” to Proactive, who represented the Scouser until the departure of agent Paul Stretford in 2008. Success has freed both player and club to pursue the new contract that has been in the offing for more than a year.
Rooney could earn substantially more elsewhere though. Indeed, the striker’s new contract will leave Rooney more than £75,000 per week worse off than Europe’s best paid player, Cristiano Ronaldo who earns €13 million gross per annum before bonuses and commercial activity.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Lionel Messi, Samuel Eto’o, Kaká, Emmanuel Adebayor, Karim Benzema, Yaya Toure, David Silva and Carlos Tevez all earn more than €8,500,000 basic per season and sit comfortably in the top 10 best paid footballers on the planet.
Indeed, the new wealth at Manchester City and the only slightly older riches at Stamford Bridge, together with Spanish giants Barcelona and Real Madrid, dominate the European pay scales.
Players in Spain currently benefit from the so-called “Beckham” law, which provides for a 24 per cent flat-rate tax scale for foreign nationals, while the upper tax rate in Italy is also less than that in the UK. It’s a fact that has pushed Manchester City’s spending even higher, with the Eastlands club forced to at least match new acquisitions’ net pay.
Rooney’s new deal will at least bring the United striker’s pay in line with other high English earners, including John Terry and Frank Lampard at Chelsea. But with the UK tax rate set to increase to 50 per cent from next April, Rooney’s net pay will sit well outside the top 10 best in Europe.
The striker’s deal will also take his pay above Rio Ferdinand as United’s best earner, with only Ryan Giggs and Dimitar Berbatov also in the top 50 best paid players in Europe. It’s a fact that reflects United’s transfer strategy over the past two years; shedding two substantial earners while replacing them with cheaper players.
Not that Rooney will suffer for lack of free cash. In addition to his United wage, the 24-year-old has multi-million long-term deals with both Coca-Cola and Nike, together with sponsorship from Ford, Asda, Electronic Arts and a publishing deal with HarperCollins.
After a disappointing end to last season’s challenge for Premier and Champions League glory, an ankle injury that stopped the striker scoring since March and a horrendous World Cup, Rooney can at least sleep well in the knowledge of life-long financial security.
Not bad for a kid that grew up in one of the country’s poorest housing estates.
United have never been the top payers in England, let alone Europe. This isn’t a new thing, as you seem to be implying. It’s how we’ve always operated. And, if we sell the best player in the world at his request, his replacement, who by definition won’t be as good, is bound to be paid less. But you have to have a dig at the club in every post, don’t you.
FFS @John Smith. Where’s the dig? Its factual observation. In fact, even with your blind rose tinted glasses that can’t bare to stand any implied criticism of the club even if its true, you could interpret this post as positive about the club’s management as they’ve got one of the very best players in the world for far less than his peers are paid. Woo hoo. Well done Glazer family, just look at those great negotiating skills. As for United’s strategy – yeah, they’ve let two players go who were both on top wages (substantially more than Rooney btw) and brought in Valencia/Owen who earn far less. Again factual observation.
Another observation – do some research before posting something inaccurate. It’ll help your point. In 2004, the year before the Glazer takeover, United had five of the top 10 best paid players in England on its books and the highest wage bill, despite Chelsea’s spending that summer.
I’m not criticising the piece, but it’s worth mentioning that Barca just recently had to take out a substantial loan just to pay wages, and that Chelsea is desperately trying to reduce its wage burden, hence offloading Joe Cole and Michael Ballack.
Assuming this list is accurate: http://www.caughtoffside.com/2010/02/17/50-highest-paid-footballers-in-the-world-be-prepared-to-be-slightly-surprised/
Inter, AC Milan and Liverpool each have only 1 player in the top 30 highest paid, Arsenal and Bayern have none (united has two). It’s impossible to look at that list and conclude that United is not paying enough to be competitive. Especially since the top 10 highest paid features many players who did set the world on fire last season (Ibra, Terry, Benzema, Adebayor, Kaka), and the next ten features the likes of Henry, Gerrard, Raul, Ronaldinho, Kolo Toure — simply not worth the money surely.
The fact is that wages have gotten out of control for any club that lives in financial reality, even the biggest ones. Really only City and Real (for the time being) are still pushing up salaries, since Barca and Chelsea have already squeaked loudly from the squeeze.
I don’t disagree that wage inflation presents a risk and that’s why the UEFA regulations are important even if they don’t go as far as I’d like.
United has always had a pretty good wage/turnover ratio in any case. The question now – will the club lose players if it won’t compete? Vidic to Real is an example being played out in front of our eyes right now. He wants parity with Ferdinand and the club won’t do it.
There’s some very good analysis in Soccernomics that says wages account for 92% of a club’s success.
I would rather pay Rooney 200,000 a week and make up the difference by clawing back all the directors loans, management fees, consultancy fees etc that the Florida parasites have hoovered out of the club.
Pointless rant………… Agree with the John Smith lad..
@IvorHardy
And I’ll offer you the same reply then. If you can’t take anything that’s not pure United cool-ade drinking sugary optimism, then manutd.com is the place for you.
@Ed – well said. I agree.
Great post Ed. Didn’t see much of anything negative myself. Just a nice article about how we don’t do what City, Chelsea, Realand Barce do and massively destabilize football by overpaying all their players. Well done United.
What does it say about the people above, however, who are convinced that everything they read is a shot at United. Something Freudian about that, methinks…
Hey Ed.. Unfortunately buddy words have an exact meaning. But you can always, of course, live in denial. Please don’t ask me to quote you, I’m certain you are well aware of everything you implied.
Just a side note, you can’t get bitter with those who continue relentlessly supporting the club, irrespective of the goings, inside or outside the pitch.
The reason Spain pays so much higher is as mentioned the tax rate, which is under review with Spain itself in a lot of trouble after being groups with Greece, Portugal and Ireland to form the PIGS. It’s unlikely they will sustain it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/mar/28/barcelona-real-madrid-spain
The tax law has been scrapped for future transfers, although current player contracts will end under the current rate. It’s why United can’t hope to sign Benzema and why City have to pay Toure so much.