Top Salary for new England manager
Announced The Times, on Jun 28th 1974. Apparently the FA were 'ready to pay a top salary to get him'. Ted Croker, FA secretary, declared that 'It will certainly be more than Sir Alf [Ramsey] received. I personally think Sir Alf was underpaid, but that was not my responsibility'. In the frame, it says, are Don Revie, Ron Greenwood, James Bloomfield (Leicester), Ken Furphy (Sheffield United), James Adamson (Burnley) and Don Howe (West Bromich). Of course in the end it was Don Revie, then Ron Greenwood.Anyway the salary that the FA were prepared to pay was ... £20,000. And apparently Alf was on a bit less than half that.
So how much is that in today's terms? There are various ways to calculate the value of a salary today. The method which gives the lowest result is to look at the purchasing power of that salary, ie to inflate it by changes in the RPI. This gives you £160k a year for Don Revie, and about £75k for Sir Alf. The method which gives the highest is to use GDP. This shows you what proportion of national wealth he was taking (or producing). That gives £330k for Don Revie and about £150k for Sir Alf. Average earnings is someway in between.
The Times' archive has some more information for comparision, Francis Lee, who played for Derby in 1975, was said to be earning £10,000 a year. So a little bit less than the Alf Ramsey figures in today's money. Furhermore for the 1976 European Championships the FA announced win bonuses of £5,000 per player. This was sometime before the Championships and presumably given high inflation might have been revised - though England didn't win.
England seems still to be suffering from the after effects of the maximum wage. That was abolished in 1961, but by 1970 there was a plan by the League to introduce it at £50 a week, or £2600 a year, which is £3861 in 1974 terms. In Brazil by 1976 a top international was said to be earning £3500 a month, or £42,000 a year. This is equivalent to £205k to £410k a year today. In Italy in 1974 it was reported as being up to £60k a year, which is in today's money is between £415k a year and £950k a year (actually probably higher on the latter measure as Italian GDP might have grown a bit faster since 1974 than ours, though I'm not sure). When Liam Brady joined Juventus in 1980 it reports he was on £150k a year, which is similar to the Italian figures quoted above. Trevor Francis, also in Italy, in 1984 was reported to be earning £375k a year, which is between £800k and £1400k today.
My conclusion? Football players have increased their relative position in the economy.
posted by Matthew @ 7/11/2006 03:37:00 PM
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