As we come to the end of the season and the discussions turn to who should stay and who should go at Wolverhampton Wanderers, I’d like to address two players, oft-discussed, but not from a playing perspective but – you won’t be surprised – a financial one.
I have read that Semedo is expensive and we can’t afford to keep him but that Hwang is too valuable, due to the commercial benefits we receive as a result of his status in South Korea, to lose.
I know many of you will glaze over at the very mention of money and football but it is actually the most important thing in the game – no surprise that the teams with the most money tend to be the ones at the top and vice versa. Consequently, when I read things that are completely wrong and if followed through would lead to major errors in football terms, it frustrates me and I hope you will appreciate the truth.
First, you have to note that the cost of a player is his wage AND his amortisation (amort). With Wolves at the moment, football wages represent approximately 50% of the total cost each player with their amort making up the other half of the cost.
Consequently, if Semedo is retained next season, on the same wage he is currently on, he won’t be by far the most expensive player in the squad, but in fact one of the cheaper players. This is despite having one of the highest salaries as he will, having resigned on a free, incur no amort.
Losing one of your cheaper players, (let alone probably one of your top 5 or 6 players in ability terms), because you haven’t thought it through properly would be insane. To do this when the squad still requires significant bolstering and will almost certainly cost losing 1 or more of the other top 5 or 6 players, for genuine financial reasons, is beyond insane!
However, Hwang who also has a high salary – not quite Semedo levels – is still in his first contract but doesn’t carry a significant amort. This means that he is in fact one of our more expensive players – costing us roughly £7m a year. But what about the revenue he generates? There is a lot of talk about the number of Koreans attending home games. Realistically, however how many is it? – not just on a wet Wednesday evening in February, but week in week out. How many of those tickets wouldn’t be sold to someone else anyway?
Given the number of season ticket holders, plus away fans, how many could it be? What is your guess? Mine is a few dozen at best generating tens of thousands in ticket sales perhaps? Add on some merchandise sales both at the ground and on line – maybe £100,000 or so.
Finally sponsorship and advertising – I fear a similar level to that obtained from our Mexican, Portuguese and Brazilian fan base i.e. not much if anything! So our Korean commercial revenues from Hwang probably don’t cover much more than a week, at best a fortnight, of his annual cost.
So if you don’t believe that he is still a first team player – after that amazing purple spell last season – then selling him is a totally viable option despite the ridiculous idea that he is a valuable marketing tool!
Written by Thefutureisoldgold1 April 11 2025 10:38:19
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