'Gravity catches up': Kieran Maguire's stark player wage bill warning to Portsmouth owner Michael Eisner
The football finance expert believes John Mousinho’s player budget is in the Championship’s bottom two
Kieran Maguire delivered a Championship wage bill warning to Pompey and insisted: Eventually gravity will catch up.
Latest club accounts covering the 2024-25 season details total wage costs of £17.42m - a rise of £6.85m after returning to the Championship.
Those figures represent the total earnings for all of Pompey’s 141 employees, plus 176 casual staff, not specifically footballers, in the year ending June 31, 2025.
However, according to Maguire, a football finance expert, Pompey’s 57 players averaged a weekly wage of between £7,000-7,500 - with a £11.5m playing budget overall.
If accurate, his calculation would put the Blues’ player wage bill in the bottom two of the Championship last season and this.
And with the size of wage bills often a correlation with success - particularly in the Premier League - he fears Pompey’s approach could eventually cost them.
‘Eventually gravity catches up with you’
Maguire told The News: ‘Pompey punch significantly above their weight based on the budget. You would expect them to finish in the bottom three last year, but they didn’t, it was 16th.
‘It does show that you can operate on a tight budget, but, eventually, gravity catches up with you.
‘My wage calculations are rough and ready, the average weekly wage at Pompey was around £7-7,500k a week. That is low by Championship standards, around half the average wage.
‘The formula gives me a player budget figure of around £11.5m for 2024-25, before taking National Insurance into account. So Pompey were either the lowest or the second-lowest payers last season. I suspect they will be fairly close to that again this season.
‘In terms of the Premier League, the size of your wage bill corresponds with where you finish. With the exception of the teacher’s pets Bournemouth and Brighton, who have these very big algorithmic Moneyball models for player ID.
‘If you look at 2023-24, the three clubs which had the lowest wage bills were Burnley, Sheffield United and Luton - and they were all relegated. Manchester City won the Premier League with the highest wage bill, Arsenal had the fifth-highest and finished second, so they actually overperformed last season.
‘Manchester United and Spurs were poor performers compared to the wage bill, but most clubs are broadly in line. Over a league period of time, you get what you pay for.
‘The Championship has a distortion caused by parachute payments, so it doesn’t work perfectly.
‘Sometimes you will have players on a Premier League contract in the Championship because there’s either a very small relegation clause or perhaps no relegation clause.
‘Pompey competing at the top end is remote’
‘And, on the back of that, you have this awkward situation where nobody else wants to sign him because he’s on £90,000 a week - and the player doesn't want to go because he’s on £90,000 a week. The club suffers as a result.
‘There is a broad correlation in the sense that the chances of Oxford United, Rotherham or Pompey competing at the top end of the division is remote - but we saw with Luton it can be done.
‘We also saw that with Huddersfield when they were promoted to the Premier League in 2016-17, although that was down to absolutely brilliant utilisation of the loan market.
‘Cardiff were relegated last season from the Championship with a wage bill of £39m - with Pompey’s at £11.5m the same season. In fact, Cardiff spent £12.5m in transfers and still finished 24th.
‘It shows that should you get it wrong and if the working environment isn’t right - and Spurs could be an example - you can end up in a mess.’
£17.43m spent on staff wages in 2024-25
In terms of playing staff, Pompey numbers rose from 47 to 57 for the year ending June 31, 2025.
With one addition to office and football management - taking them up to 84 - the total of 141 employees represents a rise in staffing levels of 8.5 per cent.
Overall, including 176 casual staff, payroll figures have risen from £10.57m in 2023-24 to £17.43m last season.
Although those figures exclude salary contributions made by Pompey in respect of their seven loan players, which totalled £1.93m.
Still, through his own financial formula, Maguire believes his figures of a £11.5m player wage bill before June 31, 2025 is an accurate one.
He added: ‘There’s a document put out by Uefa, called the European Club Finance and Investment Landscape. It claims that, on average, three-quarters of a club’s wage is going to the first-team squad.
‘My formula uses that, divided by the number of weeks, making adjustments for National Insurance and so on.
‘If I’m out with my figures, I normally get shouted at by clubs, so I constantly refine the calculator. Others have said you are not too far away. It’s an average and you should always take averages with that in mind.
‘With loan players, ultimately they are still paid by their employer. Sometimes what clubs will do is add to their payroll the cost of loan players coming in, but it does vary from club to club.
‘As ever with these calculations, some you win, some you lose.’
Your Next Pompey Read: The 'perfect' moment struggling Portsmouth believe can keep them in the Championship