Originally Posted by
micls
Ah come off it. You are signing top quality players who are wanted by other clubs. McEleney, Kelly and Watts if it happens are all wanted by other clubs. They are not signing on for anything less than 'high salaries'. It's ridiculous to try to claim otherwise.
Likewise, you've been tying key squad members up on long term contracts (which is very sensible and an important step). Again, these players are not signing for small money.
I'm sure there are some of your players, who are with you from earlier times, on lower money, but the reality is from now on players signing for you know you have money. That drives up the price. Especially when you're almost exclusively signing players wanted by other clubs.
I don't know what Dundalk players are being paid, but I know the ones who you beat the competition to sign are very likely on high wages. And the number of those are going to increase.
I also don't know what our players are being paid. I do know the ones we had competition for are likely on high salaries, Sadlier, Shep and McNamee probably being the stand out ones. The main reason I think our average is lower, is that most of our players are either from Cork, McCarthy and McLoughlin would be on tiny money, Mults and Buckley there was never much competition for them to move on, Benno, Delaney, Morrisey and Cummins are obviously on bigger money but the ability to come home played a big part, or our players weren't in huge demand when we signed them initially (Beattie, McCormack, Griffin, Horgan). Seanis first contract would be another example of that. His second contract an example of how the competition pushes the price up.
We're spending a good chunk of money, 1.5m is not chump change in this league! But the circumstances of our players signing will have impacted many of their salaries.
I think it's naive to think the same isn't going to happen at Dundalk and that most of their players won't be on high salaries, especially those coming in post 'Peak 6'. You simply have more players that were wanted by other clubs. We did similar a few years back when we had the money and were handing out big contracts to the likes of Gamble and Georgie, though that was done with less sense involved.
You've obviously got the money, so it's probably not an issue, but it will drive up prices for top players in the league.