Players Wages & Transfer Fees

4FCB

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We were talking recently about transfer fees and player wages, while the world is in the midst of the current pandemic and Mrs 4ers came out with something which I have to say, had some morality about it.

Arsenal are just about to sign Willian on a free transfer admittedly, but as there’s no transfer fee, they are paying him a ‘handsome’ signing on fee and wages that are being reported as over £200,000 per week for a three year contract; not bad for a 32 year old in the Premier League.

However during lockdown, Arsenal made 55 people redundant due to cash flow issues, who if they haven’t found alternative work are now possibly drawing unemployment benefits, one assumes.

So, in instances such as this, should the PL chiefs or Government have a moral obligation to the tax payers to intervene and put a stop to things like this?
 
I would agree with the thinking but unfortunately the only "moral imperative" that applies to business is that they should make a return for shareholders. Also at what point does govt interference become a nuisance, and even if you set boundaries and rules they merely become things to play with, and people will "game" them, they always do
 
I'm sure there should be a moral obligation to stop directors of large companies cashing in their share options and paying themselves huge bonuses days before laying off staff.

But that's definitely not going to change under this government!
 
We were talking recently about transfer fees and player wages, while the world is in the midst of the current pandemic and Mrs 4ers came out with something which I have to say, had some morality about it.

Arsenal are just about to sign Willian on a free transfer admittedly, but as there’s no transfer fee, they are paying him a ‘handsome’ signing on fee and wages that are being reported as over £200,000 per week for a three year contract; not bad for a 32 year old in the Premier League.

However during lockdown, Arsenal made 55 people redundant due to cash flow issues, who if they haven’t found alternative work are now possibly drawing unemployment benefits, one assumes.

So, in instances such as this, should the PL chiefs or Government have a moral obligation to the tax payers to intervene and put a stop to things like this?
If he didn't get paid for eleven weeks (approx) they could keep the 55 on @ £30k per year. He'd still get a cool £6.7M per year after the tax man....tricky to live on that I admit.
 
I agree its unacceptable from a club like Arsenal but it happens in all businesses. People get made redundant and directors etc take their bonuses.
 
We were talking recently about transfer fees and player wages, while the world is in the midst of the current pandemic and Mrs 4ers came out with something which I have to say, had some morality about it.

Arsenal are just about to sign Willian on a free transfer admittedly, but as there’s no transfer fee, they are paying him a ‘handsome’ signing on fee and wages that are being reported as over £200,000 per week for a three year contract; not bad for a 32 year old in the Premier League.

However during lockdown, Arsenal made 55 people redundant due to cash flow issues, who if they haven’t found alternative work are now possibly drawing unemployment benefits, one assumes.

So, in instances such as this, should the PL chiefs or Government have a moral obligation to the tax payers to intervene and put a stop to things like this?

I'm in Mrs 4ers fan club....lovely piece of thinking by her !
 
Yes ,way of the world I'm afraid........makes me laugh when we call other countries corrupt........when in this country it's called finding loopholes..:cool:
 
We were talking recently about transfer fees and player wages, while the world is in the midst of the current pandemic and Mrs 4ers came out with something which I have to say, had some morality about it.

Arsenal are just about to sign Willian on a free transfer admittedly, but as there’s no transfer fee, they are paying him a ‘handsome’ signing on fee and wages that are being reported as over £200,000 per week for a three year contract; not bad for a 32 year old in the Premier League.

However during lockdown, Arsenal made 55 people redundant due to cash flow issues, who if they haven’t found alternative work are now possibly drawing unemployment benefits, one assumes.

So, in instances such as this, should the PL chiefs or Government have a moral obligation to the tax payers to intervene and put a stop to things like this?

They might have a moral duty to the former employees but to the taxpayer?

Willian's income tax will more than cover the unemployment benefits you mention.
 
They are all on the fiddle. 246 UK professional footballers were investigated for fiddling their taxes, as a result of which HMRC netted £73 million in back tax.

https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/tax/business-tax/hmrc-reaps-ps73m-from-football-tax-clampdown

Stinking Hypocrisy to pick on Arsenal? AFCB's owner is stashing his money in the BVI to avoid UK taxes, and how many of our players were part of the 246 caught fiddling.

The article doesn't say that 246 players were caught fiddling - it says they were investigated - it also states that the clubs and agents were investigated too.

It is possible to be investigated, and cleared of any charges.

You seem to have a real downer on Max Demin. Why? - he put up the money to fund the most successful period in the history of the club.
 
They are all on the fiddle. 246 UK professional footballers were investigated for fiddling their taxes, as a result of which HMRC netted £73 million in back tax.

https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/tax/business-tax/hmrc-reaps-ps73m-from-football-tax-clampdown

Stinking Hypocrisy to pick on Arsenal? AFCB's owner is stashing his money in the BVI to avoid UK taxes, and how many of our players were part of the 246 caught fiddling.

Fair point made but the Arsenal link is used just as example, which is why I wrote “in instances such as this”.

We fully accept that there are other clubs, companies, corporations who probably exploit loopholes all the time.
 
Arsenal would argue that if they didn’t make signings like Willian then they wouldn’t be in the position to earn the income required to employ all the admin staff.

I think it’s very unfair to scapegoat a single player here. It might be that post covid, Arsenal had a playing budget of £200m. Now it’s reduced to £175m with the difference being to protect as many jobs as possible at the club.

Within that remaining £175m there is still going to be expensive signings. Willian happens to be one of them but that’s not his fault!
 
Arsenal players by all accounts are a bit dismayed at the redundancies, as they all took pay cuts during the lockdown with the idea it would be saving jobs across the club.

Unlike our shower who reportedly held discussions but no pay cut was formally announced. Instead the club made the u turn on using the governments furlough scheme.
 
A workforce should never agree to a pay cut without first commissioning an independent report on their employer's finances. For instance who on the playing staff could possibly know what Max real wealth is. In many cases job cuts are just a ploy by the boss to boost profits and dividends.
 
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bollox off, the playing staff are clearly, unequivocally the biggest drain

yeah maybe all property is theft, but Max could easily have sat on his **************** and drank a fucktonne of margheritas instead, he didn;t
 

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