Worlds richest club

 

I agree with Deise, flaud system and the likes of the FA, FIFA and UEFA need to step in with regards to the way things are getting out of hand financially in football!!

 

recent example: Joe Cole could go to City next season and become one of the highest paid players in football simply cz its notting to city's owners!! does Joe Cole deserve to be one of the highest paid players?? not at all IMO

 

 

 

 

 

Hull City serve as a cautionary tale for our times. Football's answer to the status conscious neighbour who kept up appearances by remortgaging the house and taking out multiple loans, they have been well and truly credit-crunched. This time last year Hull were attempting to sign Michael Owen; today they are in broadly the same boat as those who tried to live the dream but ended up seeing their home repossessed, the sports car impounded and the exotic holidays cancelled.

Effectively relegated to the Championship following Saturday's home defeat against Sunderland, the east Yorkshire club are £35m in debt and face the grim probability of entering either administration or a creditors' voluntary arrangement. Either option would incur a 10-point deduction next season and Hull's owner, Russell Bartlett, is desperately striving to avert such a situation by renegotiating loans. Whether or not he is successful should become clear at the end of a week of emergency meetings.

The bleakness of Bartlett's horizon is exacerbated by the alarming reality that Hull have a £40m annual player wage bill and precious few playing assets for creditors to strip. A European football equivalent of Greece they may be but in this case there is no chancellor Angela Merkel on hand to supervise a bail-out by the River Humber. Moreover while Greek public sector workers can expect to see their pay slashed, the all powerful Professional Footballers' Association will not countenance the imposition of involuntary wage cuts on union members.

Adam Pearson, Hull's chairman, has been engaged on a frantic cost-cutting mission since succeeding the free-spending Paul Duffen in November and is appalled by the club's past governance. "Sunderland also have a £40m wage bill," he said. "But they have seven or eight young saleable assets. We don't. We have players on long contracts, high wages and with no transfer value."

Jimmy Bullard, for instance, Hull's top earner, commands a basic £45,000 a week and has three years remaining on his contract. Hull signed the injury-prone midfielder for £5m from Fulham despite Bullard failing a medical and Duffen admitting his knees were "uninsurable". Pearson is extremely keen to offload Bullard but prospective buyers are unlikely to be queuing round the block.

The chairman's ambition is to reduce the wage bill to £15m a year. While two other high earners, Stephen Hunt and George Boateng, are, respectively, saleable and out of contract this summer, others seem virtually immovable. Daniel Cousin is on loan with the Greek side Larissa. The striker earns £26,000 a week at the KC and is contracted until June 2011, as is the £25,000-a-week Brazilian midfielder Geovanni.

Then there is the £20,000-a-weekmidfielder Peter Halmosi. Due back from a loan stint with Hungary's Szombathelyi, he has two years left on his Hulldeal. How Pearson wishes Duffen hadfollowed the example of Niall Quinn,Sunderland's chairman, and inserted clauses in all player contracts making 40% pay cuts mandatory in the event of relegation.

All managers make transfer market mistakes but Phil Brown, the manager Hull placed on gardening leave in March when he was replaced by Iain Dowie, has recruited more than his fair share of duds. Hull's seven recognised strikers have scored nine goals between them all season but collectively rake in £200,000 a week.

Bartlett must also shoulder considerable blame. He not only sanctioned requests to purchase players from Duffen and Brown but took out sizeable loans against advance Premier League income – including £10m of next season's £16m Premier League parachute payment for relegated clubs.

Brown is among the creditors Bartlett and Pearson, are negotiating with. The former manager earns around £1m ayear, has 12 months outstanding on his agreement and Hull cannot afford to pay him off.

With Dowie's short-term arrangement ending next month, reinstating Brown would be the cheapest option but no one at the KC believes he and Pearson could, realistically, work together again. "It's not going to happen," a club source said, explaining that the only scenario under which Brown may conceivably be retained would be if he were reappointed by an administrator.

Deeply unpopular with many players, Brown had a habit of falling out with his signings. The manager's increasingly erratic, slightly manic, behaviour – remember the half-time team talk on the Manchester City pitch and the serenading of the KC with a Beach Boys number – was highlighted when, after losing 6-1 at Liverpool last September, he laid off bewildered canteen staff at the training ground for a week. Intended as a punishment for the Anfield humiliation, it left hungry players gorging on junk food bought from local petrol stations. Small wonder directors hope Brown, the subject of a scathing weekend deconstruction by Boateng, will resign.