Scott Brown’s injury-enforced absence from the team in recent weeks has at least taken heat of his contract situation but that will change in January, when he is back in the team and available to sign a pre-contract agreement. Neil Lennon reports that Celtic have met Scott’s terms but have declined to meet his agent’s demand.
Agent’s often have exclusive representation agreements with players which guarantee the agent a cut of any contract signed when the agreement is active. 5% of a four or five year contract for a top-earning Celtic player could easily reach £300k, or £360k including vat. This is a lot of money for the player to pay out of his after-tax income so what commonly happens is the agent uses his exclusive deal with the player to negotiate a pay-off from the club instead of acting for the player. Unlike the player, a club can reclaim vat and pays before, not after tax, so the same money going to the agent costs the combined player/club less.
It’s often the case, however, that the agent’s fee paid by the club has little resemblance to the percentage the agent would get representing the player. While a player has an exclusive deal with an agent, a buying club has three deals to agree: the selling club’s fee, the player’s wages and the agent’s fee.
Big agent fees don’t necessarily mean bad business for the buyer, as the agent may well have made a deal achievable at a purchase price which would not have been otherwise possible, but clubs are typically more reticent when it comes to paying agents to renew contracts for their existing players. One (then) SPL chairman told me he had a flat £500 tariff for such deals.
Artur Boruc concluded his last contract with Celtic without an agent. At the time he explained that he would need an agent if he was moving club but didn’t need one to negotiate a predetermined level on the Celtic pay structure. This would have saved Celtic money and might have earned Artur an extra bonus.
Scott Brown is not in this situation. If he is offered a contract of around £6m over five years, after 50% tax and 12% (?) national insurance (which Celtic and staff pay…), his take home pay from the contract will be considerably less. 5% of the contract could end up looking like 14% of take home pay after vat is added.
Celtic will also be alert to the dangers of precedent. If a player’s ‘advisor’ can get a significant pay-day out of a contract renewal there is no incentive for the player to conclude a deal with Celtic without an advisor, indeed, there is incentive to get one involved.
I’ve no information whatsoever on what is going on with Scott’s contract but the portents don’t look promising.
A couple of years ago we spoke about the excellent Why England Lose and its predecessor, Moneyball. Two books that sought to explain how to find value in football and baseball respectively. The Brad Pitt movie, Moneyball, based on the events analysed in the book, is now out. Not sure making a drama out of statistics is wise but I’ll need to check it out.
Read CQN Magazine for free online here. Subscriptions to the online copy are discretionary but you can contribute here. Old-school hard copies are available here from Magcloud.
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Awe_Naw_No_Annoni_Oan_Anaw_Noo says:
29 November, 2011 at 14:43
Yeah that’s the original blog post but if you read on he replies to future comments that they appear to have been paying small amounts whilst not providing the full salary info which would lead to immediate HMRC action due to non-payment. They view this very seriously as this is not seen as a bill, they view the companies as middle men who collect the tax and then immediately pass it on (though not in this case). Yet another wee loop hole these tax specialists use!
Just to change the subject, I have heard from a relation of mine who is a physcologist in a Glasgow hospital, who went to the recent Inverness game with a colleague of his who is a senior cardiologist, both professional blokes, not wearing any colours, and enjoying a wee soiree in a Inverness hostelry, when just about to take a sip of their second pint, the barman came up and said to them they were not welcome in this pub. I hope to god that barman never needs the services of these two upstanding gentlemen, and may his earholes turn into arseholes and shit all over his shoulders. Thats how much it stinks. Inversneckies!!!!!! you are now way down on my list. Hail Hail.
Che
what post at 14:43 ? the one to Once a Bhoy ?
Way over my head bud ?
Hail Hail
philvisreturns – 14:02
“If public sector workers aren’t willing to contribute an extra 3% or so towards funding the costs of their own retirement, why should we, the taxpayers, be expected to contribute anything? Cut ‘em loose. A healthy dose of reality never hurt anybody…”
Meanwhile, back in the jungle…
The High Pay Commission was set up by pressure group Compass, with backing from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, to investigate boardroom pay.
Its year-long inquiry found that the pay of top executives at a number of FTSE companies had risen by more than 4,000% on average in the last 30 years.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15827683
Awe Naw
this part:
“Since taking over Rangers on 6th May of this year, Whyte’s Rangers have been deducting PAYE and national insurance from players’ salaries. However, the club has not been passing this money on to HMRC. In fact, the club has fallen behind on current remittances by an amount that is fast approaching £2 million.”
Paul67 et al
Could somebody please arrange to transport phivisreturns to Rockall, and let me know when he gets that start-up business of his off the ground?
Psychiatrists assessing self-confessed Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik have concluded that he is insane.
In other news, water is forecast to remain wet for the foreseeable future, and Craig Whyte may not be quite as well off as Keith Jackson previously implied.
philvisreturns: 29 November, 2011 at 14:02
Say ‘hello, hello’ to Craig Whyte from us all.
As you both live in Cloud Cuckoo Land it is clearly just a matter of time before you bump into him.
Once A Bhoy….. says:
29 November, 2011 at 14:50
okay fair enough. I would suspect that he should change his headline article then as it is now outdated and a tad misleading. Not that Craig Whyte will be taking him to court.
The point is that Phil McGiolla Bhain and The RTC guys are persona non gratis in Scotland and I include those that work at
Celtic Park
Glasgow
G40 3RE
Scotland
If any of this is even remotely true they should be doing their best to confront it.
We dont have one friendly news outlet ON THE PLANET that could hint at this story to bring it into the Scottish public domain rather than having to rely on personas non gratis like Phil and the RTC guy ?
They truly believe we are buttoned up the back.
Unfortunately to do so would leave them exposed.
THEIR SILENCE AND LACK OF SUPPORT SPEAKS VOLUMES
Hail Hail
Chewbacca on his first day at school
Che says:
29 November, 2011 at 14:56
Yeah I fully agree.
Hail Hail
Joe @ 13:52
Philvis will probably point out that in order to ‘earn’ this £8.5M annual bounty, the investor you mentioned is ’risking’ his hard earned capital. Moreover, since he’s getting his income via dividends, his tax bill will be much lower than yours or mine.
Somebody’s got to do it …
On a relted theme: from the letters page of today’s Herald:
The media constantly suggest that current public service pensions are “gold-plated”.
The Hutton Report firmly rejects this claim, stating the average pension paid to pensioner members is about £7800 per year, while the median payment is about £5600. Indeed he cites evidence from the Pensions Policy Institute that some highly skilled workers earn more in the private sector, particularly in the south-east and London.
Lord Hutton suggests that because of rising life expectancy there is a need to manage the pension system more effectively. Not everyone will live to a “ripe old age”.
He quotes current life expectancy projections based on sources from the Office for National Statistics to above 80 years for males and 85 years for females. The statistics in some areas of Scotland paint a very different picture. The Scottish Public Health Observatory (SPHO) calculates the life expectancy for males in Scotland is 74.7 years and 79.5 years for females.
There is a link between income, employment and quality of life. The older people get, the more their health deteriorates, especially those in lower socio-economic groups. Index-linking the state pension age to life expectancy completely ignores this reality. To give an example, data from SPHO suggest that in Greenock town centre, the average life expectancy for males is 65 years of age. In some areas in Glasgow, life expectancy on a five-year average annual measure is slightly lower than 65 years.
It could be argued that a low income public sector worker in these areas, retiring at 68 years, might be contributing more, for longer, and might not live long enough to collect the pension they have paid into all their working lives.
Vicky Wilson,
Laurel Way, Bridge of Weir.
—————————————-
Great news about the boycott.
We don’t need these Salt and Sauce Huns polluting any part of Celtic Park.
The sooner they are in the Third Division the better.
Swiss Tony
The Swansea support were asked to obey a minutes silence for Gary Speed at the weekend.
After a few seconds of silence they burst into applause,then they started to chant his name.
This has not been condemned is any any way,nor should it be.
It was just supporters trying to show there admiration for the man,and the footballer that Gary Speed was.
Celtic supporters would have been slaughtered for such a showing.
The minutes applause is the best way.
I was at Anfield on Sunday,right next to the City away support.
You could quite clearly hear City fans,who were unaware that the minutes silence was taking place,singing outside and underneath the stand.
The normal ssshhhhooooing rang out.
There was no hoo haah about it.
A minutes applause drowns out the noise on such occasions.
It is the correct way to go,and as the Swansea fans showed,many prefer it.
TT
PS
I am not Vicky Wilson and do not come from Bridge of Weir!
FF
Someone’s just handed in a copy of the ole ‘Socialist Worker’ for me to read.
I’ve just had a quick wade through it but so far no mention of Scott Brown, nor his agent.
DBBIA
Any coverage of Greek strikers?
(CHORUS:)
Old Firm family
I got all my brothers with me
Old Firm family
Get up ev’rybody and sing
Ev’ryone can see we’re together
As we walk on by
(FLY!) and we fly just like birds of a feather
I won’t tell no lie
(ALL!) all of the peeple around us they say
Can they be that close
Just let me state for the record
We rip you off for Old Firm Kudos
(CHORUS x2)
Living life is fun and we’ve just begun
To get our share of the SKY´s delights
(HIGH!) high hopes we have for the future
And our goal’s in sight
(WE!) no way we the repressed
Here’s what we call our golden rule
Have faith in blue and the things WE do
So we won’t go wrong
This is our family Jewel
(REPEAT CHORUS TO FADE IN FACT UNTIL FADE AWAY)
Thanks to whoever posted this originally, it still gives me a belly laugh
http://www.27bslash6.com/overdue.html
Scott Brown says ——
Neither Washington nor Moscow !
DBBIA
He omitted me (;-(
TT
thomthethim says:
29 November, 2011 at 12:23
Interesting.
Is there nothing inbetween, can you not be in both camps ?
For me, if I am interested in something, I try to make up my own mind about things, if I am not interested politics eg. I don’t bother even read or listen on the subject, it only serves to upset me knowing I can do feck all about it
I shouldn’t really be bothered about the plight of the hun as I can do nothing about it, as for Celtic I can do something directly about it, I can not buy merchandise from the club.
That is a powerfull tool to have at my disposal, and I am swithering whether to use it or not as I don’t agree with how the club is being ran on some levels.
I understand that the hun demise will have paved the way for some of the boards thinking, they must have know for years about what was coming, being part of the OF and the like and have acted accordingly.
My problem with the board is their lack of fight in allowing the sfa to issue licences knowingly that a fraud was being commited, and their lack of action over corrupt referees that are cheating the club out of millions of pounds.
Dontbrattbakkinanger says:
29 November, 2011 at 15:04
Someone’s just handed in a copy of the ole ‘Socialist Worker’ for me to read.
I hope it wasn’t one of your private patients!!:>)
Hearts fans plan to boycott games at Hibs and Celtic over ticket prices
By BARRY ANDERSON
Published on Tuesday 29 November 2011 12:54
HEARTS fans are considering boycotting forthcoming away matches at Celtic and Hibs because of new ticketing measures which will see them pay more than 25 per cent extra to attend the games.
Officials at Celtic Park and Easter Road are opting to sell tickets straight to Hearts supporters and post them out, ensuring revenue goes direct to the home clubs without any involvement from Hearts. However, fans are outraged at the booking and special delivery fees they are being asked to pay to secure their seats.
Hearts staff will not handle their allocation for the SPL encounter at Parkhead on December 10, nor the Edinburgh derby at Easter Road on January 2, 2012. But, inclusive of booking and delivery fees, a single Hearts fan attending the Celtic match must pay £35.70 for an unrestricted view ticket. Hibs are charging individuals marginally less at £34, again inclusive of delivery. The rise in cost is sharp for tickets costing £29 (full view) at Parkhead and £28 at Easter Road. Celtic claim the special delivery service is optional, but Hibs have made it compulsory.
That means Edinburgh-based Hearts supporters cannot collect their tickets in person for the New Year derby and must pay £6 to receive them in the post, although group bookings will not be charged extra. Hearts fans are angered at such a dramatic price increase and are now contemplating staying at home on both occasions.
“This will put a lot of Hearts fans off going to these games,” admitted Steve Kilgour, who is secretary of the Federation of Hearts Supporters.
“Some folk have spoken about asking for a boycott, saying Hibs in particular can go and raffle for the money because we’ll just watch it in the pub.
“I don’t think that’s the way to go but that’s the kind of things people are talking about.
“Once again it’s Scottish football ignoring its paying punters. At a time when they are trying to get people through turnstiles, some clubs are making it harder and harder for fans to go to games.
“This arrangement causes a lot of inconvenience, especially for supporters’ clubs.
“We are used to dealing with Hearts directly and getting our orders in a group booking. There’s no guarantee of that same service from Celtic and Hibs. If this is being done because the other clubs suspect Hearts won’t pay them the ticket money they are due, then that’s just an excuse.
“I think the other clubs want the money straight away, they don’t want to wait because they need cash themselves,” Kilgour went on.
“Some people feel Hearts should do the same to Hibs when the time comes for them to come to Tynecastle next year. But all this is just making it harder for the ordinary paying supporter to get to a game.
“There has been a bit of tit for tat between Hearts and Celtic in the past over tickets. But Celtic go out of their way to make you unwelcome as it is.
“Parkhead is the most inhospitable place in Scotland to go and watch a football match. That goes from the stewarding right to the policing,” Kilgour claimed.
“We’re Hearts supporters, we want to deal with Hearts.
“We don’t want to deal with Hibs and we don’t want to deal with Celtic, or any other club for that matter.”
Why is a meaningless Hun friendly game, in Hamburg at the end of November, being shown live on ESPN ?
Celtic_First says:
29 November, 2011 at 11:45
Poordeadking
What’s wrong with the world indeed?
I was thinking about this this morning. Experience teaches us that feasts are only good if you really mean them. To prepare for the feast, a period of fasting, self-denial, hard work is often necessary (Advent before Christmas, Lent before Easter, Ramadan before Eid ul_Fitr).
If you just show up for the feast, and then move on to the next feast (Burns Night, Valentine’s Day, St Patrick’s Day, Mother’s Day and whatever else the retail industry has invented for us, often by misinterpreting and perverting traditional feasts) without ever going through the fast (if not literally denying yourself food, at least getting your head down and getting on with some work, wearing old clothes, eating porridge et cetera), it will soon come to pass that all feasts blur into one and none is really meaningful or enjoyable.
We need shade as well as light, silence as well as sound.
The retail industry doesn’t like shade or silence, sackcloth or ashes, belt-tightening or humility. It spends a fortune trying to convince us to spend an even bigger fortune on things we neither need nor really want.
That’s my answer this morning to your very vexing question. I share your frustration.
———————————————————————————–
I’m similarly disheartened by the vacuous consumerism and consequent sense of entitlement.
The refusal to use “Happy/Merry Christmas”, however, is just mad.
Seriously, who’s offended by the word “Christmas”?
And is it just accepted nowadays that” Season’s Greetings” is to be used because it’s “…less Christian”?
I always thought this was largely an unspoken thing.
South Of Tunis
The ISB touring the deep south would make the Top Gear lads who visited there seem like Ninja warriors.
Scott Brown should be chased out of Celtic Park. An imposter of a footballer. His agent to be fair is a total genius.
Portsmouth – insolvent
Awe_Naw_No_Annoni_Oan_Anaw_Noo says:
29 November, 2011 at 15:18
“Parkhead is the most inhospitable place in Scotland to go and watch a football match. That goes from the stewarding right to the policing,” Kilgour claimed.
Im sure the GB would agree with part of Brother kilgours statement…
Henriks Sombero
Hamburg v huns match on live TV!
I trust thats a joke.
Poordeadking says:
29 November, 2011 at 15:21
there was a queue of gentleman on here last year who were getting themselves worked up by me using the term xmas. Sadly none of them had a heart attack because of it ? But hey what can you do ????
Hail Hail
p.s Merry Xmas to you
It’s Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Che
When I started reading it. I thought for about 0.000000000000000000000000000000000001 of a nano second that this was our reply to the baby huns cutting our ticket allocation after the night they attacked Lenny but no it is only because they are concerned about payment. I bet we dont have the same concerns about our hun masters inability to pay.
Hail Hail
Happy Holidays
Happy Christmas
Merry Christmas
Happy Easter
Happy Administration Day
Happy Insolvency Day
Happy when are you in the 3rd Division Day
We shouldnt be afraid to use any of them.
FAO James Forrest ( or the any other breaking bad aficionados ).
a few good t-shirts here
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dclothing&field-keywords=breaking+bad
TeT,
I suppose that depending on the issue, we can actually be in both camps.
As you ssuggest, if it is something that we don’t have an emotional attachment to, then we can be “logical”.
However, if we are emotionally involved, e.g., Celtic, then logic can and usually does, go out the window.
Say for instance, someone has an idealogical problem with a company being run as a PLC; then it is very difficult for that person to divorce his personal, pre conceived views from objectively appraising any act or decision the PLC would make.
He is already prejudiced against the principle of a PLC, so, if he also has an emotional attachment to the club, then it would be extremely difficult for him to form a logical view on a specific matter concerning the Board.
I think that prejudice and emotion are the root of most of our opinions, save for the select few, two of whom I mentioned earlier, who base most of their thoughts on logic.
The “problem” is, that to get the most out of supporting Celtic, you have to be emotionally involved.
Last year, Celtic went public on their displeasure at the SFA.
What happened?
We had the ref’s strike and the club and it’s staff publicly villified by every media organ in the country.
We more we publicly complain, the more the Establishment shout, “It’s them complaining again.”
They have the megaphone.
We have to be smarter and perhaps the way is to let them make their mistakes in public.
We both agree that the only end game for us is Resignation, as we will never change the mindset in Scotland.
I hope that the club are working on this and we cease to be “those troublesome Tims”.
Awe_Naw….,
“Hearts staff will not handle their allocation for the SPL encounter at Parkhead on December 10, nor the Edinburgh derby at Easter Road on January 2, 2012. ”
hearts staff WILL NOT handle their allocation, strange, does this mean they are refusing to accept the allocation ??