Serie A: The Classification rated by Salaries
By: alessio | January 2nd, 2009CalcioMercato posted a great article (short and sweet) that rated how much each team was paying in salary per point in the table as of the Ritorno -2 days. Of course given the narrowness of the table right now, it’s going to be proportionately biased against the big spenders. Enjoy.
Here is the team salaries as of this year:
Il Milan e l’Inter spendono 120 milioni, poi Juve (115), Roma (65), Fiorentina (37), Genoa (35), Napoli (29), Palermo (28), Lazio (27), Torino (25), Samp (20), Cagliari (20), Catania (20), Bologna (19), Siena (18,5), Lecce (18), Chievo (14), Udinese (14).Atalanta (12,5) e Reggina 11,4)
“Scudetto dei Soldi”- Salary per point in the table.
1. Atalanta (0,231)
2. Udinese (0,286)
3. Catania (0,357)
4. Reggina (0,393)
5. Cagliari (0,425)
6. Siena (0,430)
7. Napoli (0,433)
8. Sampdoria (0,444)
9. Lazio (0,450)
10. Fiorentina (0,521)
11. Genoa (0,538)
12. Palermo (0,549)
13. Bologna (0,576)
14. Lecce (0,581)
15. Chievo (0,700)
16. Torino (0,757)
17. Roma (1,203)
18. Inter (1,276)
19. Juventus (1,420)
20. Milan (1,622)
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Comments
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I think this just shows that expensive does not always equal good when it comes to football players. Or, buying expensive players does not necessarily get you lots of points. As an Inter fan for many years, I can certainly vouch for that supposition.
Posted from
United States
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Alessio, that is a top class article, as you can see the big three dont always the best bang for their buck. I say Udinese and Napoli really have a good system this season, while surprise surprise Roma who always bitches about their poverty and lack of funding are also riding the bottom of barrel while spending higher up the list.
Posted from
United States -
Not surprising that Chievo, Torino, Lecce, and Bologna join us at the bottom.
Posted from
United States -
This posting has been removed by an administrator.
Posted from
Germany -
RomaChris did a similar ranking last year, which I shamelessly copied & expanded on mCalcio. And what do you know? Atalanta is still the most cost-effective team of Serie A.
Also, except for relegated-Parma, does anyone notice the similarity of this year’s Top 6 and last year’s? Similarly, have a look at the bottom 4… Some things never change.
This ranking has a few caveats though, it’s important to keep a few things in mind. I’ll re-mention them here:
1. First, the analysis takes only salary budget into account, and ignores other club-related costs such as funds spent on transfers, stadium maintenance etc. etc. As Chris points out, the difference between clubs with “lower” cost totals is very negligible and doesn’t provide a very accurate ranking between the teams.
2. Also, this analysis only takes into account the Italian Serie A. Big clubs such as Inter, Milan, Roma etc. also have European competitions to deal with, and therefore can justify a higher wage budget on account of having to play more games (not to mention that these games, especially in the UEFA Champions’ League, are a big source of revenue in ticket sales, advertising & TV rights).Nonetheless, this ranking provides a good indication of which teams “are better than others” at keeping their wages low and still being able to compete at the highest level of Italian soccer.
Posted from
Italy -
Correct as usual, Marco. For the reasons you stated, as well as the midpoint of the season. Depending on how it finishes, by the end of the season you may see some of the big teams pass up a spot or two.
Re: stadium maintenance, is that typically done jointly between the city councils and the teams, or one or the other? I know only Juve owns their own stadium, but of course we’re not even playing in it.
Posted from
United States -
Marco, in that same vain, those big clubs have a higher cash flow because of their European status. What would be extremely interesting is to strip that cost/profit from those clubs and then put them on the same page as the other teams, I am sure they would still spend more, but possible spend more effectively as well. It is a very interesting article and can be analyzed several different ways, but the bottom line is that there is a solid way to do business when you are in the “have not” category but regardless of that operation it may not yield the first place result, so money does in fact play a large factor in how things are done.
Posted from
United States -
I would agree Gianfranco. I would say this is a better tool to examine relegation-battlers and mid-table teams. It’s quite obvious that Torino and Chievo are having serious problems when they are ranked near Juve/Inter/Milan/Roma.
Posted from
United States -
Gianfranco wrote:
What would be extremely interesting is to strip that cost/profit from those clubs and then put them on the same page as the other teams, I am sure they would still spend more, but possibly spend more effectively as well.But how would you proceed in that matter Gianfranco?
The club’s total wage budget can’t be modified, as it is the same for Domestic & European competitions. The only solution would be to take the points obtained in European cups into consideration as well (3 points for a win, and 1 point for a tie). Thus the wage budget would be divided by a higher points-total, resulting in a better cost-per-point value.
Better yet, UEFA Champions League teams should get some sort of bonus modifier (e.g. 1.2) to be multiplied to the points obtained, because the UCL competition is more lucrative than say, the UEFA Cup. However, then we have the problem of selecting an appropriate number for said bonus modifier: is it 1.2? Is it 1.4? Is it more than that? And that’s when it starts getting really complicated.
And even if we did all that, and it would indeed improve the cost-effectiveness for Juve, Inter, and Roma (Milan not so much this year
), I think these clubs would still be ranked at the bottom. Like alessio said, this analysis is definitely more noteworthy for “small” clubs, and based on the last two years Atalanta are definitely the kings of it.Posted from
Italy -
This is an interesting list, but it really doesn’t tell us a whole lot, as some would have you believe.
First of all, the teams at the bottom of this list are always going to be there no matter what. It’s just more embarrassing for that team that is at the bottom of this list not to be in the top three spots of the table. Or in Champions League
Bolongna, Chievo, Torino and Lecce’s place on this list is more a function of how many points are being divided into their wage bill as opposed to their efficiency. We all know that they aren’t paying out a lot of money, so it isn’t like they are wasting talent/euros. But don’t we have a League table to tell us they aren’t very good?
As others have said, the list is skewed. The bottom three are always going to be there, whether or not it reflects in their standings. They usually have Champions League to play in, and that takes resources. They compete with richer clubs for players, and that drives players salaries up.
Most importantly, they earn more, so that they can spend more. If this table tells us anything, it is telling us who is maximizing it’s earning potential into reinvestment. For example, where is the money that Atalanta is making going? They make revenue from televison and stadium attendance. Where it’s NOT going is towards reinvestment of players, we know that. So what happened to it? If I was a fan of the team/director on the Board at Atalanta, thats the stuff I would want to know.
Posted from
United States -
You’re kinda repeating what I already said MAD.
MAD wrote:
For example, where is the money that Atalanta is making going? They make revenue from televison and stadium attendance. Where it’s NOT going is towards reinvestment of players, we know that. So what happened to it?Well, where else do you think it’s going? Atalanta’s stadium, Atleti Azzurri d’Italia, has a meager 26,393 seat capacity. Quite respectable in its own right, but do you think they can compete with the San Siro/Stadio Olimpico of Rome and their 70/80,000 seats? And unlike Juve (who also have a 27k stadium), they don’t have the fortune of the Agnelli family to back them up.
In other words, whatever Atalanta make via stadium attendance & TV rights only pales in comparison to what Inter, Roma, Juve, and Milan make. Don’t forget merchandising either, which is always a big clubs’ main cash flow source, and which quite honestly must really not be very big for the Bergamo team.
All this to say that whatever Atalanta earn, is probably indeed re-invested in the transfer & wage budget. The point where Alessandro Ruggeri can be commended is precisely being able to keep the wages low and still have his team do moderately well in the standings. I really don’t think the president & the other investors are pocketing the money, if that’s what you implied earlier.
Not every Nerazzurro is a crook, you know? (sorry, just HAD to throw that in there
)Posted from
Italy -
I think, given the current economic atmosphere, that they have banked quite a bit of their yearly money against REAL TROUBLE, whatever that is. I am pretty sure that there aren’t any Nerazzuro teams that are crooked. I can’t speak for others, however.
And no, I don’t think that their stadium competes with other, bigger clubs. Nor do I think that merchandise for Atalanta is a bigger seller, either.
I just also don’t think that they are doing smart business, like Palermo does. Atalanta’s summer transfer brought in around 12 mil euros – the best piece of business was the sale of Moris to Palermo for over 4 mil. They spent somewhere around 5 mil euros in transfer. They also have about 9 or 10 players on loan. I don’t know the details other than the players went to Serie B teams so I will disregard them.
So just from the transfer season alone, they probably received half of this years wage bill. Smaller teams devote a much smaller percentage of their net in take to salary, so lets be super conservative here and say 30%. Atalanta would have to take in an additional 40 million euros in stadium and television revenue to pay, and I am estimating here, a 14 mil euro wage bill.
If you are telling me that 40 million euros is too much for Atalanta can make, then I refer you to this article:
http://itn.co.uk/news/d9ebc530cc0d714f832332d8d65a96fc.html
You may remember when Serie A offered Serie B teams 40 million *pounds* a year from television rights and they rejected it as too little. If Serie B teams think 40 mil *pounds* is too little, what does that tell you that each Serie A club is making from television rights?Atalanta should be using more of their money to buy young talented players and bring in players on loan, cheaply from bigger clubs, to compete with teams like Catania, Genoa, Lazio and Napoli. As I said earlier, if I was a fan of that team, I would wonder more where that money is going to and why it wasn’t reinvested on the team.
Posted from
United States -
MAD, firstly, in the article you quoted, the £50m offer was to be shared among 22 Serie B clubs. That amounts to barely more than £2.25m per club. You may wish to try and extrapolate (or “guess” in this case) how much a Serie A team is making based on that number, but I won’t.
Secondly and more importantly, there’s a lot of words like “probably” and “estimate” in what you’re saying MAD. Without the real numbers all this discussion is entirely hypothetical.
We don’t know how big a financial pool the Ruggeri family possesses, nor do we know how much they make available to the club’s budget. And unfortunately, I don’t think Atalanta are big enough to have caught the eye of Deloitte. Even the transfers that you quoted, only take into account this year’s business. What of residual money from the previous year? What of other sources of revenue? You can’t just say “well they sold this guy, bought this other guy, where’s the rest of the money going”?
What we do know is Atalanta’s wage budget (€12.5 according the Calciomercato article alessio linked to) and how many points they have in the standings. That’s what this analysis is about. Yes, we can say “well there’s many factors this ranking isn’t taking into account” and then go about listing them, but to expand the analysis further, without a full knowledge of all the numbers involved, now that would be an exercise in futility. Find me a source with the real numbers, and we can continue this discussion further (and then you can rant all you want about Atalanta’s financial handling being inefficient).
I’ll get you started: on average, Serie A teams are getting €3.9m per year from shirt sponsors.
Posted from
Italy -
Sorry, I didn’t realize that hypothetical discussion was outlawed.
And, I wasn’t actually ranting. It’s not like I am trying to convert anyone. In fact, I haven’t even made it personal, unlike some. I was just offering the opinion that I don’t particularly like the way that Atalanta does their business and I think this “analysis”, as you call it, is flawed. It is too simple and it doesn’t take any factors into consideration, for my taste. And I only used Atalanta as an example to make a point that being at the top of a list such as this one, if it did what it was supposed to, may not be the good thing that everyone else seems to think it is.
There just seemed to be a misunderstanding as to what I said and so I offered to expand my opinion a little further to try and make clarify what I actually meant. Apparently I failed, fine.
I am not really that hot on the subject. Atalanta doesn’t really enflame my passion.
But, fair enough. As you said, it’s “probably” an exercise in futility to me to continue. So, I’ll leave you to it. I have other, better teams to think/worry about.
Posted from
United States -
What don’t you like about it? The fact that they are content with midtable mediocrity? The fact that they are a selling club?
Posted from
United States -
I’m all for hypothetical discussions MAD, but one on economics where the numbers involved are result of guesswork, well that’s just a lot of hot air.
Posted from
Italy -
#9 scored today against Monaco
Posted from
United States -
He did. Anyone else watch? Ariaudo played well.
Posted from
United States -
Ok, what about this:
http://www.goal.com/en/news/1717/editorial/2009/01/06/1046427/calcio-canto-alessandro-del-piero
Alex is Alex, but writing poems/songs about your favorite players isn’t a little too gay?
Posted from
United States -
I try and avoid that site altogether.
Posted from
United States -
Let’s get a squad update for Sunday’s match against Siena
Anyone know the word on Camoranesi? I assume Buffon will be in net which will be a nice feeling.
Posted from
United States -
I’ll be working on something in the airport I think, I’m moving to Spain today
Posted from
United States -
Ah… !enhorabuena! in this case alessio.
Posted from
Italy
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