Accounts posted by a football finance expert show the full extent of the West Ham wage bill and it may come as a surprise to some.
It may not have shown on the pitch this season but West Ham spent an unprecedented £170m in the summer window.
The Hammers then followed that up with the £15m signing of Danny Ings from Aston Villa in January too.
It brings David Moyes’ total transfer spend over the last four windows to a quarter of a billion pounds – with £65m spent in the summer of 2021.
West Ham also spent big during the spell under Manuel Pellegrini, splurging over £166m on transfers, not including signing on fees for a host of free agents.
After shelling out such large sums of money – by the Hammers’ standards – on players in recent times, there has been much speculation about the West Ham wage bill.
Especially given acquisitions such as record £51m signing Lucas Paqueta.
Many clubs have tried to live beyond their means over the years only to overstretch themselves and end up in serious financial difficulty.
The vast riches on offer in the Premier League make staying there absolutely vital for West Ham after their big transfer spending.
Reports have abound about West Ham’s players are facing the prospect of big wage cuts should the Hammers drop.
But that is all very standard procedure for any Prem club and certainly nothing new.
Most fans are also realistic enough to accept the majority of high-earning players would be sold should West Ham be relegated anyway.
The worry is that a club will saddle itself with unsustainable wages, especially when spending big on transfers to try and compete for the top six.
But accounts posted by a finance expert show the full extent of the West Ham wage bill and it may come as a surprise to some.
Kieran Maguire was responding to a post listing the wage bills of Premier League clubs.
And in doing so he revealed that West Ham’s wage bill in the latest accounts is running at £136m.
While that is obviously an astronomical amount of money, it is actually a very modest and sensible total for a club of West Ham’s size and standing given the spending of the last few years.
A post from Twitter account EPL Bible listed West Ham’s wage bill at just under £81m.
But friend of Hammers News Maguire, author of the excellent Price of Football books and co-host of the podcasts by the same name, pointed out the figures are actually much higher.
Man United top the charts with a wage bill nearly three times that of West Ham at £384m.
Spurs are paying out £209m while Everton, Aston Villa, Leicester and the usual suspects from the so-called “big six” all have higher wage bills than the Hammers, who are actually 10th on the list in these figures.
So credit where it is due because while all fans naturally want to see their owners spend big money to improve the team, the West Ham board have not been gambling with the club’s future like others have and continue to do at other clubs.
You can see the full wage bill list in the post below.
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