Anyone with children or someone of “uncomplicated taste” in their house will probably have heard of The X-Factor. This season’s contest was staggering for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there was a chap called James Arthur, and he was good. Secondly, and even more incredibly, the children and the “uncomplicated” got it right and Arthur won.
This got me thinking about the power of the Digital Vote. This thinking period also coincided with concerns I have over the way Arsenal FC allocate their pay.
As a club, we are stuck in no-man’s land. The Club wisely like to achieve CL Qualification, and let’s face it, until last season it has been a bit of a stroll in the park given the poor competition. As an end to realistic league ambition, this must severely dent the incentive of the footballers themselves.
So, and here’s the point of this post, perhaps it is time to reconsider the incentive scheme at The Club. It really does boil down to cash, unless of course, one of you bright sparks can unearth a better system, in which case I’d love to hear it.
What is in the kitty? I am not sure anyone really knows exact figures, so I’ll go ball park.
£135m paid out in total. Let’s say the total players’ pot stands at around £100m. Here’s the plan. Everyone in the first team squad is on £25k a week. Nice. They are all reasonably comfortable, have a little surplus for their jewellery, and enough orange for their wags. Tidy. This £25k is deducted from the pot. The remainder is divided equally over the total amount of games possible in a season (as we get eliminated from Cup competitions, the remaining allocation from that tournament rolls over).
The rest of the cash is performance related, and on a match by match basis. Here’s The X-factor connection. My system shall include Audience Participation. Fans simply text in their player ratings, and from these results, the pot will be divided up in accordance with the ratio of points scored.
I have done my sums here, and reckon a consistently top performer would end up on around £150k a week, while players only making the odd appearance from the bench would be hovering around the £30k a week mark.
I’m not entirely sure I can see a problem, can you, and if so how would you improve the current system?
Written by MickyDidIt89
Arsenal News 24/7
arsenalarsenal.net 
Nice thought and nice try Micky! 🙂
When you consider the best players at other clubs can get approx £125K to £200K per week, already, we would have farewell parties in every transfer window as Jack, Cazzor, Szczeney, Ox, and others bade their sad goodbyes.
The ones left would get relegated, there would be no bonus, they too would leave, and within 3 years you would have single handedly wiped out Arsenal Football Club.
Luckily the world will end today at 11:11 a.m. and your dastardly plan will fail, Blofeld!!
Did you sum account for Simon Cowell’s cut?
You can all come out now, the world did not end after all!!
Simpler – get a monetary value for each fantasy Premier League Point and pay them that on top of their “Basic”
D98, 🙂
You are alive – I thought I was the only one to survive!!
The players are like greedy hogs with their snouts in the trough. But who wouldn’t do the same in their position. More fool the owners.
Personally I don’t care what they earn — I only want to see them play football, and it is up to the club what they agree to pay them, frankly.
These things have a habit of finding their own level — something called market value, I believe!! 🙂
Hasn’t d world ended yet. Oh, i had God has postponed it so he can watch d Madrid Vs Man UTD, and d Arsenal Vs Bayern M. Match. Just kidding though. Hope we beat Wigan and continue our climb into champions league spot
Been out on the streets ……. deserted.
Even AA is full of tumbleweed.
Never wanted to be the last man standing.
Pills and alcohol ……
Great thinking my friend. I don’t think the players would buy into the idea but I think its great.
It would give players a great instinctive to do well, especially the fringe players. It would also keep the so called super stars on their toes and increase competition and motivation within the squad.
The biggest problem would be getting players to sign up to it. To much player power their days.
Nice try, impossible, but nice nonetheless.
I think it wouldn’t be fair though. Most fans – I assume – is incapable of rating players. They do not see the nuances of the game – a player can be virtually invisible – because your sole job was to man mark an oppponent thightly. He may do his job perfectly, still be rated lower than a clumsy striker with a movement of a shot rabbit – but who managed to poach a goal. Or the other way round – if one is a striker and doesnt score, one must be shite, right?
Hi
Yes we are all safe in Wales it did not happen TEOTW.
Lets focus on tomorrow’s game,important game,early kick off.
Much love
Sheep
The End of the World could still happen.
If we lose to Wigan 😦
Very funny Post Micky 🙂
We should go the whole pig and have the supporters vote for the team selection each week. It would be quite amusing.
Micky,
looks like everyone has gone to the moon.
Can we turn the clock back, of course not.
You are in business and so was I and i have often listened to the argument that players are head hunted purely for money, regardless of what else they say.But there are other influences involved if a player moves.
Football is a business where a huge amount of clubs are spending beyond their means and in the majority of cases just to survive.Published figures prove that.
There is no incentive whatsoever for a footballer to be picked or sat on the bench, the wages come in automatically.
I think agents on the whole have been detremental to the game as shall we say politely that a good percentage of footballers haven’t got the highest I.Q.and can be advised in any one direction by their agent or even team of people representing them.
Of course it is every footballers dream to win a trophy but just taking the 20 years of the PL there have been 49 clubs in it and only 5 clubs have ever won it and in blackburn’s case the momentum was short lived.
i am taking up space as no one is around 🙂
In a perfect situation all the players should be on a basic wage according to age and experience and then some sort of bonus for whatever they achieve in a season. The EPL award money as to where a team finishes and the crazy thing is that a relagated club gets a parachute payment which amounts to about the same as the money earned from winning the CL.
texting in would never work as fans are fickle and as with blogs one gets more input when things go wrong rather than a convincing win
A ggod keeper should be worth as much as a good striker and you can make comparisons all around the pitch, but invariably goal scorers have and always will get the plaudits.
this doesn’t really answer your question but I hope you get the gist.
I fancy us to beat Wigan tomorrow,looks like santos the defender is on his way back to turkey.
Never rated him can’t believe we paid about 6 million for him.
Yet to see him play a good game for us.
Good riddance
Santos was on my list yesterday 🙂
What list ?.
Christmas list lol
ARSENAL have turned down a £2.5million bid from Galatasaray for flop Andre Santos.
So much for provoking a vigorous debate about pay structure, AND, I missed the End of The World.
Good news though, he who scores record low comme.ts, must never write a post again.
He who laughs last…….
Cant keep this up as on mobile
You’re
not
getting
off
the
hook
that
easily
Micky
😀
Rocky
That
Is
a
cunilingus
plan
oops
did
I
hi
really
say
all
really
good
idea
this
to
cunilingus?
foil
and
Didit’s
plan
ha
did or did
not
ha !
CharyB
interrupt me?
and i spent hours writing my reply
Oops !
Sorry,
Redders !
You
will
not
get
off writing posts that easy Mdi89. 🙂
Well that has put paid to the Didits cunning plan. [That’s the word I was looking for — ‘paid’!] 😀
End of the world my foot! I love 21st December, my favourite day of any year, coz after today days will be getting little bit longer. But Rocky is right, we lose tomorrow and it will be the end of the world, for us anyway
Micky,
I enjoyed the post.
Just run that past me again………………. 🙂
I think they all ought to be paid a couple of grand a week and the rest should be made up in win bonuses and special payments if they win a trophy (including 4th place).
There could also be a sliding scale of payments related to goals, assists, assisting the assister, tackles (graded from vicious and unnecessary to goal-saving), interceptions, blocks, clearances, passes (ranging from hospital to Pythagorean), effective jockeying, closing down, corner taking, coming for high balls, headers (graded from stooping to salmon-like), showing for the ball and smiling.
Haha
Funny blog today.
Redders and Chary flip-flopping was like a Two Ronnies sketch.
Yeah Chas, with the height differential I should obviously be Corbett. 🙂
That was Rockstar’s comment, chary.
I think you’re more like little Ern.
Excellent post Micky, but we need to allow a higher number for a couple of special talents only, to compete for the top players occasionally. We must find a way to make that available in a reasonable system.
Evonne, 🙂
Did you say ‘end of the world, my foot’ and really mean ‘end of my leg, my foot’?
Redders 😀
Evonne is, indeed, a leg end
🙂 🙂 🙂
My grandma strongly believed that when a Pole becomes a Pope and America has a black president, that’d be the end of the world 🙂
Muslims believe that there will be no water and that will finish this world. Cannot see that happening in UK, the puddles are huge, London is like a lake district
I thought that chavs becoming champions of Europe be the end of the world.
Micky’s post. It was a fine example of out of the box thinking. I ran the idea up the mast to see if it would fly and it does.
Why didn’t TPIG get a new contract? Ah – he got a 5 year contract in Nov 2010
Evening all, fun post Micky, would love to see it happen at any club. But unfortunately as we all know its impossible, the horse has well and truly bolted off while football chairmen realised a tad to late that the gate was open.
Raddy that means at the end of this season he only has 2 years left. Time to sign TPIG, otherwise it’s mismanagement right?
AFC are getting slaughtered on TalkShite radio for cancelling the West Ham game, good! I know that Chas and others have other plans, but I don’t and was really looking forward to it
Evonne I’m not surprised at TS it’s been brewing that one for a while, but if they would like to explain how 60000 fans will make kick off without the tube I would be interested to hear it.
Quite simply chaos would go reign on the roads.
Come on GiE, that’s London, not Norwich! There are buses, cabs, Boris Johnson cycles. If I had a ticket, I would find a way to get there. PLUS, the strike will probably not go ahead
TS recon that we will have new players in Jan and wanted to postpone. What new players??
Cancellation suits me. I am happy about it.
I realise it is inconvenient but does anyone think AFC profit from the cancellation? Ridiculous.
Raddy
Well, if I was West Ham I would be pretty pissed off if, when the fixture is rearranged for next year, I have to line up against the NEW Arsenal front line of Messi and Llorente 🙂
RL . Strange you haven’t mentioned the signings of Ronaldo, Vidic, Scweinsteiger, Busquets, Jordi Alba, Falcao and the bloke with the poncey hair at RM
oooohh….that’d be nice 🙂
The strike might not go ahead but that doesn’t mean the club have done this off their own back. Clubs Official Statement (I hadn’t evene thought about staff & stewards getting to the game):
“This decision has been made now, due to the preparation period needed to safely operate Emirates Stadium by all the relevant agencies.
The Club liaised closely with all the relevant agencies, including the Metropolitan Police, Transport for London, London Underground, The Premier League, West Ham United FC and Islington Council, in order to reach this decision.
The paramount concern was always the duty of care towards the Arsenal supporters, West Ham United supporters, matchday employees and workers and indeed everyone who was planning to attend the game on Boxing Day.
In addition to the proposed industrial action on London Underground on Boxing Day, there are extremely limited services operating on National Rail train services into London on this day. Also, normal parking restrictions close to the stadium still apply. This would have caused severe disruption, or at worst, inability for supporters or matchday employees and workers to get to Emirates Stadium.
We apologise for the inconvenience this may have caused supporters but we feel that the right decision has been made.”
So limited trains, limited parking, potentially no tubes, I’d guess limited buses….in short an arseache for all concerned.
Normal Matchday lets assume 10000 attendees are local, twenty thousand probably disappear into Arsenal and Finsbury Park tube station, a similar number into Highbury & Islington and Holloway Road, 10000 go to pubs?
Now take those forty thousand people off the tube/trains…..ouch!
Kelsey
5 clubs have won the PL. and I don’t think there have been 93 in it. Sorry to be picky 🙂
why would a gooner listen to talkshite?
…..to self-flagellate.
45
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Premier_League_clubs
chas. Don’t you sleep?
We have to win today. Our record against clubs at the lower end of the table needs improving
When there is no news the Train Track Veggie Market does it for me.
LB – for you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fujo9pI6vqU&playnext=1&list=PLB8204044988DB7CB&feature=results_video
and my favourite for me 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnqmGetC4v4&list=SPB8204044988DB7CB
that’s my favourite
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnqmGetC4v4
Morning all ….
….. New post…..
Thanks Evonne, first time I have seen these two…very funny.