The yawning chasm in finances and player wages between the Championship and League One has been laid bare in a leaked survey.
The results of a questionnaire about pay, filled in anonymously by EFL clubs and reported by the Daily Mail, show the huge challenge facing Ipswich Town if they are to find success in a sport increasingly divided between the haves and the have-nots.
It reveals that the average wage for the best-paid players at Championship clubs is a staggering £29,000 a week - with the league’s highest-earner pocketing £68,000 every seven days – while League One’s top players are paid an average of ‘just’ £4,753 a week.
Indeed, even the lowest-paid top earner at a Championship club is on £8,500 a week.
The top-paid player in League One, said to be at a ‘northern club’, is earning £15,600 a week – still a huge amount for the third tier.
The survey, filled in by 18 Championship outfits and 15 in the third tier, also shows that one League One manager at a ‘southern club’ is trousering £550,000 a year – it seems highly likely that boss is Paul Lambert.
That wage is almost £400,000 more than the average manager’s wage in the third tier of £182,438.
Again though, those figures pale into insignificance when compared to the Championship, where the highest-paid boss is on an eye-watering £3.46m a year, and the average manager wage is £878,000 per annum.
It’s not just players and managers who are paid well in the second tier either - the survey shows the average chief executive is on £295,179 a year, goalkeeping coaches are on more than £84,000 a year and physios earn almost £70,000 a year.
The figures, which are for the current season, demonstrate just why famously-frugal Town owner Marcus Evans is so keen to see Financial Fair Play rules and penalties enforced - if the Blues were to earn promotion back to the Championship, it’s simply not a level playing field when it comes to finances.
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Speaking back in 2016, Evans said: “Financial Fair Play, which was brought in to level an increasingly uneven playing field, hasn’t worked. Parachute payments for clubs relegated from the Premier League stand at £89m over three years, £40m of that in the first year.
“There were nine clubs in the Championship who benefited from parachute payments last season. There are eight this year who have that advantage. It all adds up to a division that is getting more competitive by the year. The average parachute club starts with a £20 million per season head start over the rest of us.”
Average pay - Club’s highest-paid players
Championship: £29,000 per week (top earner £68,000/week)
League One: £4,753 per week (top earner £15,600/week)
Average pay - Managers
Championship: £878,000 a year (top earner £3.46m a year)
League One: £182,438 a year (top earner £550,000/year)
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