West Ham’s massive wages begins to backfire

Ollie Irish

14th, August 2007

4 Comments

GudNeill.JPGWest Ham are starting to see why most clubs like to have some sort of wage structure in place. Barcelona forward Eidur Gudjohnsen is stalling over an £80,000 a week offer from the Hammers because he wants £100,000. It would be easy to blame the ex-Chelsea man and accuse him of greed, but if I was a player of Gudjohnsen’s class I would want to be a few leaps up the salary scale away from £60,000 a week Lucas Neill!
I suspect in a few years West Ham fans will spit the name Eggert Magnusson in the same way that Leeds fans talk of Peter Ridsdale. Suppose it gets to the stage when the Hammers can attract a genuine world class player (and legally this time!). How much would you pay him when your bog standard centre-back is earning more than most Premier League strike partnerships put together? And as Newcastle have recently shown, clubs are now introducing ‘Chelsea’ prices for West Ham. People know they have money to spend and they are not afraid to hold them to ransom. Is this living the dream?
Photo Getty Images

Posted in West Ham Utd

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4 Comments

  1. Kipp says:

    Good point about ridsdale, seems they’ll never learn but weren’t people spouting this about chelsea 4 years ago and now they seem to actually be a viable ‘big’ club (if you go by revenue) but the wage situation is diabolical i think it was to attract players to save them in january but to continue it to sub-optimal other players is unacceptable i would feel…hammers fans might like it though i mean as long as they can win a home game against a team managed by an idiot according to mo….oh

  2. Phantom Pain says:

    FIFA need to do something about wages in general. There must be a salary cap or a limit to the amount of 80-100k earners at one club as quite frankly, the situation at most large English clubs(My beloved Man U included)is ridiculous.
    These wages should be reserved for the clubs TOP players, the likes of Ronaldo@United,Gerrard@Liverpool,Drogba@Chelsea,Kaka@Milan and so on. Players who really stand out at a club, not also rans like Michael Ballack(based on last year..)
    Part of the problem lies with this G14 group(Once again my beloved United involved) who seem content to price other clubs out of the market not only in buying players but paying players, forcing smaller clubs like West Ham to pay unreasonable wages for their level.
    Fans also have their part to play because while it maybe the owner’s name on the deeds, the club will always belong to the fans. It is their season tickets, their kits and other contributions that will go to paying these ‘superstars’ like Lucas Neill and Craig Bellamy. Fans must react!

  3. Col says:

    You cannot take the money out of the game, i mean, if Man U/Chelski aren’t spendin it on the wages, what will they spend their millions on? Giving it back to the fans?? That’d be stupid.
    :-)

  4. Anonymous says:

    Uh, profits?