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Thread: Minimum wage introduced

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    MW is a good idea no doubt but as pointed out needs to be part of an overall strategic pitch to government along with academy funding etc. As a solo run by the PFAI it will only get the backs up of hard pressed clubs.
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    Seasoned Pro joey B's Avatar
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    https://twitter.com/offtheball/statu...00209994457107

    Stephen McGuinness saying here "there’s a cohort of clubs in the first division who want the league to go backwards" ,that's pretty confrontational from PFAI on the issue's at hand......
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    The PFAI want the best deals for their players. Though he never speaks much about where the extra money will actually come from.
    Upwards to the vanguard where the pressure is too high.

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    Seasoned Pro ger121's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by joey B View Post
    https://twitter.com/offtheball/statu...00209994457107

    Stephen McGuinness saying here "there’s a cohort of clubs in the first division who want the league to go backwards" ,that's pretty confrontational from PFAI on the issue's at hand......
    I guess he says it like he sees it. He’s always been very blunt and direct with his opinions.

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    Quote Originally Posted by joey B View Post
    https://twitter.com/offtheball/statu...00209994457107

    Stephen McGuinness saying here "there’s a cohort of clubs in the first division who want the league to go backwards" ,that's pretty confrontational from PFAI on the issue's at hand......
    It all a bit bite off your nose to spite your face.

    The ideas for where he wants to go are good. But the proposals should be aspirational, and brought in over a period of time, even this minimum wage being introduced overnight seems problematic. There needs to be a roadmap for how to get there, and part of that is a huge increase in sponsorship/prizemoney.


    Let ignore outside income and look at these wage proposals purely in terms of gates.

    To run a squad of 16 part-timers on minimum wage, over 48 weeks will cost 100K.

    16 home matches at €15 a head would need to average more than 400 in attendance, to equal that.

    Bring in the spending cap (160K), and you need to be averaging 700 over those 16 games.

    You're going to want more than 16 players. (more than 20 too but let's go with that)

    20 part-timers on minimum wage will be 125K, that needs average above 500 to equal. Or above 800 with spending cap (200K).

    16 full-timers on minimum wage, over 48 weeks will cost 330K.

    That's about 1500 attendance over 16 games. Or getting on for 2500 with cap (550K).


    Now also bear in mind the minimum no of full-timers proposal. Would effectively see that 550K become a minimum for entry to premier division.

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    Biased against YOUR club pineapple stu's Avatar
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    I'd say average ticket price is closer to €8 once you take in concessions, freebies, season ticket discounts, etc

    He comes across like a lad demanding a ten grand increase for all the guys on the floor. It's lovely in theory, but in reality the market says ye're not worth that.

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  8. #27
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    All of the calculations above seem to ignore all non-salary expenditures at LoI clubs, and even all salary costs not associated with players. I'd guess you can double most of the budgets above, meaning you're demanding an average crowd of 1500 from the team bottom of the first division. This is pie-in-the-sky bull**** and will end badly.

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    I mean I was being generous giving a first division fixture list and premier division prices. But yeah the disparity is bigger.

    I was going for paying a minimum number of players the minimum wage, but even at that there'd be tax and other stuff to add on top of the basic pay. And yeah, bigger squads, other playing and non-playing contracts, admin and other expenses I couldn't even guess.

    Some of the 40% factored in with cap would go toward no playing side of things, but you're still looking down the back of the sofa

    Has anyone the text of the paywalled article in indo about impact?

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    Seasoned Pro joey B's Avatar
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    Article here:

    The unexpected Brexit twist preventing Irish footballers from moving to the UK before their 18th birthday is the most significant thing to happen to the senior club game on these shores in a generation. But the introduction of a minimum wage isn’t far behind.

    Our story yesterday confirming the new terms and conditions for players in this country has generated a considerable amount of feedback and debate. There’s a Brexit parallel, too, in the sense that the natural response is to wonder if this will really happen or if ways will be found to get around it. This is why 2023 promises to be a very interesting year for the FAI hierarchy.

    The players' union, PFA Ireland, and their members are very happy with negotiations that guarantee senior full-time professionals aged 20 and over a minimum of €430 per week from the start of 2023. Jonas Baer-Hoffmann, the general secretary of global players union FIFPRO, was amongst those to herald the news on social media channels, describing it as a ‘big win’ for their Irish wing.

    He added that he’s sure they will be pushing for more, which may be a reference to union dissatisfaction with the minimum wage for part-time players which is set at €130 per week. It’s understood that the hope was that €190 would be the amount, but influential First Division clubs successfully pushed back against that.

    Another factor here may also be the likelihood of the Women’s National League transitioning from amateur status to a paid model, with part-time the most likely starting point. Given attendances in that sphere are nowhere near the levels of the men’s game, lower cost bases would be preferable.

    But there’s a road to travel before that happens, whereas the new contract conditions for players in the men’s game are now operational, with more than one Premier Division club already offering €430 per week deals to prospective recruits aged 20 or over that might previously have anticipated a smaller offer.

    It’s fair to say the response amongst clubs has been lukewarm. Informally reaching out to a variety of officials to ascertain the mood on the ground brings back a consistent reply – that the idea may be good in theory but difficult to operate in practice. And there’s also a degree of resentment around the timeframe, in the sense that it’s coming into place now while clubs feel in a degree of limbo around the FAI’s future funding plans for the league.

    Clubs have been hearing encouraging messages from the top about the likelihood of Government support, largely built around investment in academies arising from the aforementioned Brexit game-changer, but impatience is starting to kick in. They feel extra costs are being landed on them before they are ready. “Another run before you can walk thing,” as one source put it.

    What are the pitfalls here? There are a few elements to it.

    It’s true that at the top end of the league, there are clubs where pretty much every senior player would be earning more than €430 per week.


    There are tiers to the system, which means the minimum wage for teenagers is lower – rising year on year from 17 to 19 – and this is the area where a lot of the momentum for this change came from.

    Anecdotal evidence exists of youngsters signing ‘professional’ contracts on minuscule amounts and league rules allowed clubs to retain them on that wage.

    Yes, if a player emerged as an outstanding talent, their pay would increase, but squads were padded out with individuals on a pittance sharing a dressing room with first-teamers earning proper salaries, albeit in a volatile market. Now there is a baseline that should offer protection to lower-profile aspiring pros.

    Read More

    Minimum wage of €430 per week to be introduced in League of Ireland
    But here’s where the cynicism/pragmatism kicks in. Critics of this move are warning that clubs will now simply run smaller squads and sign fewer professionals.

    Young players can still be signed as amateurs and paid travel expenses and if they’ve nowhere else to turn, that’s the gamble they may take. Given that officials at one middle-ranking outfit were arguing at a particular point that a player’s working time was only the period spent on the pitch rather than travelling, this is all about cost-cutting.

    And that’s nothing new in a league where cash is tight. Opportunism is required to make ends meet and this is why clubs without significant backing will be exploring ways to ease the budget pressure this change will create for them. Another administrator predicted that clubs that have been described as full-time may now explore hybrid models.

    A box on the player’s contract is ticked to denote if they are part-time or full-time. The part-time figure was thrashed out on the basis that these individuals have other sources of income outside of football. Will clubs look for players without another wage to define themselves as part-time to avoid the €430 ceiling? There’s a 'watch this space' element here.

    Another gain from the player's perspective is that all players must be paid from the start of pre-season. At First Division level, it remains common for wage payments to only kick in when the competitive season starts and money comes through the gate.

    There’s better protection on paper now and also guaranteed wages until November 30, regardless of how early a team’s season ends. This is a contentious one. Experienced heads expect clubs minding their pennies will delay signing players until closer to the start of the new season. Understandable, you could say, but it hardly benefits their chances of competing with fully prepared rivals.

    It all comes back to the different philosophies that exist between the haves and the have-nots, a gulf that looks set to widen as the likelihood of a full-time professional top-flight sails into view, even with some prospective participants watching it unfold from their lifeboat. Introducing a minimum wage to a league where members are conditioned to exist off the bare minimum is never going to be easy. From this point, however, there can be no turning back.
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  13. #30
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    If the minimum wage, even part time, applies to womens teams as well, I'd imagine that would lead to a lot of womens teams folding. I don't see how clubs can be expected to financially support a professional and an amateur team on these terms, or two amateur teams, as well as Mens U19, U17, U15 and U14 teams and Womens U19 and U17 teams.
    My previous post assumed in the region of 289k for 16 minimum wage professionals and 146k for 16 minimum wage amateurs, over 42 weeks which was pointed out to be underselling it as it would be for 46 weeks. So a team with a Professional Mens team and an Amateur Womens team would have a combined wage bill of €476k if they just had the bare minimum of 16 amateurs and 16 pros.

    With the salary cost protocol at 60% this means they need a minimum turnover of €793k. This would require average attendance of 4,958 at an average of €10 a ticket, or 3,305 at an average of €15 a ticket. Again, these gates could be reduced using additional income such as sponsorship, prize money or non existent tv rights, but there are other costs such as pay related PRSI, food, accommodation, travel, running underage teams, stadium maintenance or rent, insurance etc. I'm assuming virtually no income from womens games. Maybe thats unfair.

    Realistically only the European teams , or those with significant outside income would have any chance of maintaining two teams.
    You would be saying goodbye to the Womens teams from Athlone Town, Cork City, Galway United, Treaty, Shelbourne, Bohemian FC, Sligo Rovers and Wexford most likely. I have no idea if the likes of Peamount and DLR could fund this sort of model.
    Would the womens league consist of Derry and Rovers playing each other 30 times a year? Derry don't even have a team in the WNL but given their finances they could support one if they wanted to. Even if some of those teams try to keep a womens team going, imagine a team relying on European income missing out on qualification and having to make a tough decision about their womens team at short notice.

    I have no issue with the principle of a minimum wage, and I think our players are dramatically underpaid, but its not because we have wealthy owners screwing over the players and keeping money in their pockets. The majority of our clubs are largely struggling to keep the show on the road and are probably overinvested in their first teams. Cork City had several seasons of turnover close to 2 million, but a couple of bad seasons and missing out on European qualification sent us to the brink. This is a common story in the league.

    These changes are going to have a significant impact on the league with several teams having to consider whether they need to go amateur, or drop out entirely (whether that be the mens or womens league or both), which would be totally fine if we were in a position where we had plenty of teams waiting for their opportunity to replace them, but we know thats not the case. We had a 9 team first division this year. We might be looking back in a few years at the glory days of the 9 team first division.

  14. #31
    Biased against YOUR club pineapple stu's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by El-Pietro View Post
    I think our players are dramatically underpaid [...] The majority of our clubs are largely struggling to keep the show on the road and are probably overinvested in their first teams.
    I don't think both of these can be true at the same time to be honest. If clubs are struggling to keep the show on the road, then arguably the players are overpaid.

    If what you do only gets, let's say, 500 people to pay €10 once a fortnight, 20 times over a year, then your salary is going to have to reflect that. Football differs with other jobs of course in that for many it's a hobby, and there's a gradient between those who are, say, paying €200/year in subs to play park football, who are exempted from club fees by being on a first team (I presume), who get €50 a week and are quite pleased that they're actually getting paid to play football, who are on €200 a week and are getting through college on that, who are on €400 a week and are expected to make that a full-time career, and who are earning a grand a week plus Euro bonuses

    I'd be interested to hear how much McGuinness and the PFAI have lobbied the FAI for increased prize money for the league down the years, with the FAI's revenues increasing five-fold or so since the turn of the century. Very little, I'd imagine. Wouldn't want to risk getting turfed out of their offices.
    Last edited by pineapple stu; 11/11/2022 at 4:54 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by pineapple stu View Post
    I don't think both of these can be true at the same time to be honest. If clubs are struggling to keep the show on the road, then arguably the players are overpaid.

    If what you do only gets, let's say, 500 people to pay €10 once a fortnight, 20 times over a year, then your salary is going to have to reflect that. Football differs with other jobs of course in that for many it's a hobby, and there's a gradient between those who are, say, paying €200/year in subs to play park football, who are exempted from club fees by being on a first team (I presume), who get €50 a week and are quite pleased that they're actually getting paid to play football, who are on €200 a week and are getting through college on that, who are on €400 a week and are expected to make that a full-time career, and who are earning a grand a week plus Euro bonuses

    I'd be interested to hear how much McGuinness and the PFAI have lobbied the FAI for increased prize money for the league down the years, with the FAI's revenues increasing five-fold or so since the turn of the century. Very little, I'd imagine. Wouldn't want to risk getting turfed out of their offices.
    I get your point and don't disagree with it, but I think for the work/effort they put in they deserve to be compensated more. But football salaries don't exactly correlate with effort/work in the way other jobs do.

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    Biased against YOUR club pineapple stu's Avatar
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    Why do they deserve more though? It'd be nice for sure, and I get there's hours put in and they're also expected to look after themselves and stay out of pubs and chippers and so on. But "deserve" is a strong word.

    Is it because it's a sport? I play chess in the top division in Ireland, and I've played in the Champions League alongside some of the top players in the world (including guys making millions), where most teams had sponsors and backers of some sort. It takes work/effort to get to that level, but I had to pay my way.

    Do I deserve to be compensated more?

    If you're not generating money, I don't see why you deserve to get paid more. College American footballers deserve to get paid more because there's guys making millions off them and they get nothing. But I don't think LoI footballers deserve more at the current time. And nor do I, much and all as I'd like it
    Last edited by pineapple stu; 11/11/2022 at 5:54 PM.

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    Capped Player nigel-harps1954's Avatar
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    One thing worth noting.

    We've talked about the effects of Brexit, keeping young players in Ireland, and getting proper transfer fees for them.

    I would argue that this could have a negative impact on young players moving forward, as they'll remain on amateur contracts longer, in turn hurting clubs financially if they move on. There'll be a reluctance from clubs to give young lads on the fringes of a squad the minimum €130 a week on a part time contract.
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    Biased against YOUR club pineapple stu's Avatar
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    Probably fairly minimal transfer fees for a guy on a ton a week?

    But I guess every bit counts really.

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    Capped Player nigel-harps1954's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by pineapple stu View Post
    Probably fairly minimal transfer fees for a guy on a ton a week?

    But I guess every bit counts really.
    More than one would get for an amateur player though. Absolutely every bit counts in this league.
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    Seen the interview with Stephen McGuiness on 'off the ball'.


    It kind of left a bad taste in my mouth about it all, to be honest. It really comes across as if he stands against the league and its clubs.


    There is a common interest for everyone, the clubs, players, fans, and the FAI, that league develops sustainably. To be honest, I am not sure about the economics of the league to have an opinion on the minimum wage. I feel like it's a good thing, but I do not know the reality on the ground.


    But what I do know is Nobody is getting rich in this league or hoarding money away from players. In fact, when most teams financially struggle it's because they spend too high on wages.


    I get the league is tough on players and there is little money in it, but
    McGuiness going on national media and speaking so negatively about the league does nobody any use. Creating a boogeyman out of presumable clubs like Longford or Athlone is not helping anyone. The league has greatly improved for players too with clubs far more stable than 10 years ago. I genuinely do not understand it as surely this too hurts the PFAI players by being so against the work of the league.

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  22. #38
    International Prospect sbgawa's Avatar
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    Mcguiness loves himself, he is a poor representative for the players

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    International Prospect Martinho II's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sbgawa View Post
    Mcguiness loves himself, he is a poor representative for the players
    McG strikes me as more of a union head than an ex loi player bit like Fran Gavin in the past!
    Gary Cronin is he the right man to manage Longford Town?

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    Seasoned Pro EalingGreen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by El-Pietro View Post
    Would the womens league consist of Derry and Rovers playing each other 30 times a year? Derry don't even have a team in the WNL but given their finances they could support one if they wanted to.
    Point of information: Derry City Women play in the Northern Ireland Womens Premiership, whose (summer) season has just ended.

    The NIWP, an amateur* league which is run by the NI Football League (i.e. alongside the Mens' top 3 divisions), consists of 8 teams**, but DC Women have just endured a terrible season, winless, shipping loads of goals and finishing bottom:
    https://www.nifootballleague.com/wom...022/standings/

    Have to say I know nothing about their set-up, but I can't imagine DCFCs benefactor is putting much (any?) money into them. Indeed they may be in the NI set-up because travel costs are lower than if playing in ROI (guessing).

    Otherwise, an interesting discussion, which may have tangential consequences for the IL, seeing as it has several Southern-based players playing in it.


    * - There is talk of Glentoran, who have their own benefactor, providing some sort of payment scheme for at least some of their players.

    ** - For the season just passed, the NIWL was expanded to 8 teams, with the elevation from the Championship of Lisburn Ladies (did ok) and Mid Ulster Ladies (struggled). It is planned that it will be expanded further to 10 teams (not sure when).

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