Run your Football Club Like a Sales Team

I am a big fan of performance related pay and while it is most widely used for managers in private sector organisations, I believe that it should be applied to Premier League Footballers.

Premier League Footballers get paid a fortune, whether they play or not, and whether they or play well or not. We’ve all seen top players clearly meandering around the pitch without their heart in the game yet still getting their £60,000 a week salary.

Times are equally as hard for football clubs as they are for small and medium sized businesses. In order to get the most from your players, introduce performance related pay, similar to how the French manager Raymond Domenech is paid. He receives €30,000 for a win, €10,000 for a draw and nothing if the French team lose.

Now to make it fair, I do believe that these top players should get paid something when they are not playing through injury or squad rotation, but a £1000 a week should more than suffice.

The benefit of this system is that if the team is performing badly, further funds become available to buy new players when the transfer window opens.

Take Liverpool F.C. for example. Let’s assume the average players wage is £30,000 and all 3 subs are used for each match. 6 matches are lost and 3 are drawn before the January transfer window. This frees up a lot of cash:

14 players x ((£30,000 x 6 lost matches) + (£20,000 x 3 drawn matches)) = £3,360,000 saving!!

Not only is a lot of cash freed up but it means the players must work harder if they want to buy a pink Rolls Royce or a diamond encrusted iPhone.

Harder working players means, better results. Which means happier fans, like me.