Fortune isn't on anything at the moment as he doesn't have a contract right now, but if/when he re-signs I'd imagine he'd be one of if not the highest earner.
[quote][cite]Posted By: turn_it_in[/cite]How much would Christensen be on though, I wouldn't imagine he'd be on too much. Fortune might be on a bit, when did he last renegotiate?[/quote]
I think it was bandied about here that on top of the fee we paid for him (£750,000?), a huge payment if we now play him, he is on £5k a week. and he's not very good.
Mick Collins wrote an article (in the Mail possibly BFR can confirm:-) )that specifically mentioned Christensen being on £5k a week. He also mentioned that there were other examples of poor players on "silly" contracts.
We may therefore still have some unexpected players on exorbitant wages.
[cite]Posted By: se9addick[/cite]Fortune isn't on anything at the moment as he doesn't have a contract right now, but if/when he re-signs I'd imagine he'd be one of if not the highest earner.
He's no doubt on a week-to-week deal, that's usually happens when an out of contract player remains at the club, prior to accepting new terms.
Reported in the Independent on the recent Owen saga is that most contracts have it written into them that after they finish an extra month of payment will be forthcoming if the player has not signed elsewhere. I have no idea if this is true, or if it's commonplace outside of top players contracts; but would seem to be more logically put in place for lower league players on lesser money.
Gray, Yassin, Semedo, Sam, Racon, Bailey, possibly Youga and McLeod. Christensen was reported to be on £5k a week - surely those lot are all on more than he is.
Anyone know if any players had a wage drop after relegation?
depends when they were signed and what level they were at. Gray was signed midseason of the championship season and is a senior pro with a decent strike record prior to joining us. Not sure when Christensen was signed as a big prospect but at least the extra bit we are holding back on has meant we saved on the initial transfer fee - its gauling when you think he hasn't played and is paid that amount. That however is the travesty created by the premier league.
Just for the record - my information, and it's been right up to now, is that Christensen's wages went up each season, and I may, when I said he was on £5,000 a week, have been doing him a dis-service, because he was in fact on £6,000. In any event, the figures I was quoted would have him on either £6,000 or £7,000 a week this coming season.
Taking the lower amount, that's about 21 season tickets-worth each week (at £290, the figure advertised on the front page of the website). 21 x 52 weeks = 1092 season tickets needed to pay his wages this season. That is the extent of the mess we are in. It's not a precise calculation, I suppose, but it is illustrative.
I should add two things to this. Firstly, player contracts never used to come back to haunt us to this extent, although perhaps the more comfortable margins in the Premiership years helped smooth things over a bit. Nonetheless (and notwithstanding him inexplicably not being allowed near player contracts) I think the ethos of Peter Varney seeped through the club, and his intelligent approach to finance was invaluable. If you look back at almost any of the occasional cautionary notes he sounded, almost all of them have been subsequently shown to be well-founded. His departure has been as damaging as either of the last three, supposedly long term, managerial appointments (I exclude Les Reed, because he was acting out of a sense of duty, and I don't believe he wanted the job).
Secondly, and this follows on from that, the way the club works has changed, and not for the better. The individual staff are still excellent, and do a tremendous job, but the way some voices from 'on high' have tried to deal with matters such as the Christensen one, is shabby. As soon as it was published, certain people set out on whispering campaigns that the 'figures were wrong'. They claimed to have been involved, to have seen the figures, to know 'what I was up to'. They were wrong, they knew it, and they should have been bold enough to 'front up'. I would add that no member of the communications staff, either current or past, was involved in this. It was others, acting outside of that department, who did it.
Further to that, I began getting things 'whispered' to me by various people, which they plainly hoped I would print. Again, this was done via unusual channels and not via anyone at the club who was or had been involved in talking to the media as part of their job. I checked their stories, and they didn't add up, so they didn't get printed. Their purpose was to try and find out who was telling me things, as they were giving different tit-bits to different people and waiting to see which got printed. It was never going to work, because I work somewhere that checks things and needs to see them confirmed before they're printed - unless there's only one person 'in the know' a story is, when run on that basis, virtually untraceable.
In amongst all the chaos of last season, then, there were people with nothing better to do than to try and discredit the messsenger. And people wonder why results were as bad as they were...
[quote][cite]Posted By: razil[/cite]depends when they were signed and what level they were at. Gray was signed midseason of the championship season and is a senior pro with a decent strike record prior to joining us. Not sure when Christensen was signed as a big prospect but at least the extra bit we are holding back on has meant we saved on the initial transfer fee - its gauling when you think he hasn't played and is paid that amount. That however is the travesty created by the premier league.[/quote]
I stand corrected about the fee being £250,000, still too much. Wasn't he signed between p[remier and Championship seasons? By pardew?
Thanks for that, nice to have some real info for a change rather than unfounded rumour. Christiansens money is quite shocking really and maybe he would be in breach of contract given that he is paid on the basis that he should be progressing, but I doubt it was ever thought that anything similar was put into his contract clauses?
Sad state of affairs that our previously thought of as a well run club should have fallen so far. All players should be paid on performance, to some extent, can't we get back to giving them a few quid for goals scored, points gained, clean sheets etc or is there still too much daft money flowing around football?
[cite]Posted By: MickCollins[/cite]Just for the record - my information, and it's been right up to now, is that Christensen's wages went up each season, and I may, when I said he was on £5,000 a week, have been doing him a dis-service, because he was in fact on £6,000. In any event, the figures I was quoted would have him on either £6,000 or £7,000 a week this coming season.
Thanks for all of that Mick. Terrible but interesting to know. Any idea if other players are on similar yearly increases? Or have some wages in fact gone down due to any relegation clauses?
[cite]Posted By: razil[/cite]you would think it would be more sensible to pay off Christensen somehow, I'm sure he'd take a long term view on his career and agree to a compromise?
Razil, they tried to pay him off but he wasn't interested. Basically happy to sit and see out his contract, who wouldn't on those sort of figures because he would get nowhere close elsewhere. You have to trust your Manager but to sanction this was stupidity.
From the OS. Makes interesting reading some 2+ years on.
Charlton enhanced their global reputation with the pre-contract signing of Denmark U21 international Martin Christensen on Thursday, which also signalled the start of a three-year collaboration with his current club.
The 19-year-old winger will officially join the Addicks from Herfolge Boldklub on July 1st and the signing was the result of Alan Pardew's scouting team of Phil Chapple and Paul Haverson, who both followed him to The Valley from West Ham United.
Christensen's idol is Manchester United magician Cristiano Ronaldo and, like his hero, the youngster has a few tricks up his sleeve.
"He's a very exciting young player," said Haverson, who joined the club in early January, along with ex-Addicks centre-half and chief scout Chapple.
"He just turned 19 in December and he's already played for the Denmark U21s on three or four occasions that we've watched. We've been to see him play for his club as well and he's one for the future."
The young flanker was identified by Pardew's scouts when he was in charge at Upton Park, where he was invited for a trial.
"We had Martin over at West Ham before Alan left the club and he impressed in two weekly spells over there, so we've got a fairly good knowledge of him," Paul continued.
"He's got a trick or two in his locker and the fans will be excited when they see him because he's one of those sorts of players that likes to get at the opposition and get crosses in and he's got a great shot in both feet.
"He's got ability and if we can nurture that in the right way and he can settle down in London quickly I think you'll see some benefits early on." Herfolge's chief executive Per Rud was also at The Valley on Thursday to seal the agreement between the two clubs.
He echoed Haverson's enthusiasm for the player and was, somewhat surprisingly, pleased to see him leave for a new challenge.
"He has fantastic speed and he has many tricks," Rud said of Christensen, who will play for the Danish First Division club until the end of the current campaign.
"I think the fans will love the tricks he has. The fans already love it in Denmark, but now he's ready to go off on a big adventure to England.
"We are very honoured about this. Many hard years of work at the club have resulted in this and we are very proud that he has signed a professional contract in England."
He added: "I would like to say that they have been watching Martin for a very long time, so it's not a player that they have just found somewhere, it's a player that they have looked at for a long time so I'm pretty sure that he will fit into this team."
Although a friendly between the two clubs is being lined up for the summer, it's the Charlton academy which will benefit from the collaboration deal, with director Steve Gritt to be given first refusal on up and coming players from Herfolge, which has a fine reputation for its youth policy.
But Christensen, who is expected to be in the Denmark U21 squad for upcoming games against France and Greece, will be pushing for a first-team place straight away, according to Haverson.
"I can't see any reason why he won't get into the first team next season," he said. "Alan likes young players and he nurtures them well and I think we will see him quite early, that's my opinion.
"We don't know what league we're going to be in next season at this moment in time but we have to look to the future. We hope it's in the top flight and I think Martin will be of benefit to us whether we're in the Premiership or the Championship."
Paul added: "The collaboration is mainly for the academy. They've got a terrific youth policy over in Denmark.
"It attracts a lot of boys from southern Copenhagen and they've got quite a few young international players there from 15 up to 18, so it's great for Steve Gritt.
"He can take one or two players each year and have a look at them to see if they are up to the standard that he requires, so that collaboration will work nicely for the academy and for the club in the future."
[quote][cite]Posted By: Scoham[/cite]Gray, Yassin, Semedo, Sam, Racon, Bailey, possibly Youga and McLeod. Christensen was reported to be on £5k a week - surely those lot are all on more than he is.
Anyone know if any players had a wage drop after relegation?[/quote]
All guesswork but......
Gray I would say def the most, Youga had just been released from his previous club as a kid and if Scunthorpe wanted him he can't be on much, Mcleod would not have been on much of a wage at MK Dons so I would have thought/hoped he would be on far less than £5Kpw, Semedo & Racon were both fairly unheard of and young so again should not be on much. Yassin is probably on a lot (compratively) as he was being chased by some big clubs, and Sam signed up when we were still in the Prem i think so will be on a far wedge too. As for Bailey, Southend would not have paid him much and there was not huge competition for his signature that I recmember so maybe similar to £5K p/w
[cite]Posted By: floydandharvey[/cite]That was the crux of Mick's original article. The club have been desperately trying to pay Christensen off for years (the fact we can't afford to play him - I believe another 50k is payable to his previous club if he plays - and that he's rubbish means he's of no value to us at all). Christensen isn't stupid, and realises only be able to earn a tiny fraction of what he gets from us elsewhere, so he's sitting it out, refusing to leave, and swanning round North West Kent in a BMW (was it a BMW, Mick?).
I do wonder if he really is as bad as we assume he is. He's just not worth £5k+ a week and £50-100k for making his debut.
It's probably more down to the club not wanting to pay money once he makes his debut, for a player no better than what we have.
I really doubt he's any worse than say Wagstaff. He has played for Denmark's u21 team, he wasn't some completely unknown random player. Unknown to us but not in Denmark.
[cite]Posted By: Fanny Fanackapan[/cite]After reading Mick's enthralling piece, I'm wondering whether any of those " people with nothing better to do " are still involved with the Club ?
I've been told that Gray is on £14k a week - it is 2nd hand info (friend of friend worked for club) and even if figure is not exact, I still expect his wages to be in that sort of area.
I just wonder if the club learned a lesson from Prem relegation and put relegation clauses in new signings contracts - somehow I get the feeling they didn't
[cite]Posted By: Swisdom[/cite]I really rated him against Welling a couple of years ago -thought he looked really tasty!
Seems he wanted to get his contract and then decided to rest on his laurels
Not sure that's being fair. He had his contract at the time of that game and I don't believe anyone's ever said that he lacks application. He's a victim of a nice-to-have problem of basically being on too much money to move and is part of a really stupid deal whereby we've got to meet big additional payments if he ends up playing a certain number of games. It's not his fault really: I'd expect him to have been in the team last year if it wasn't for this, and reckon we've missed out on an interesting prospect because the people negotiating the contracts have done a poor job.
Comments
I think it was bandied about here that on top of the fee we paid for him (£750,000?), a huge payment if we now play him, he is on £5k a week. and he's not very good.
We may therefore still have some unexpected players on exorbitant wages.
Here is the relevant thread I think.
http://www.charltonlife.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=22556
He's no doubt on a week-to-week deal, that's usually happens when an out of contract player remains at the club, prior to accepting new terms.
So he's still being paid.
Anyone know if any players had a wage drop after relegation?
Taking the lower amount, that's about 21 season tickets-worth each week (at £290, the figure advertised on the front page of the website). 21 x 52 weeks = 1092 season tickets needed to pay his wages this season. That is the extent of the mess we are in. It's not a precise calculation, I suppose, but it is illustrative.
I should add two things to this. Firstly, player contracts never used to come back to haunt us to this extent, although perhaps the more comfortable margins in the Premiership years helped smooth things over a bit. Nonetheless (and notwithstanding him inexplicably not being allowed near player contracts) I think the ethos of Peter Varney seeped through the club, and his intelligent approach to finance was invaluable. If you look back at almost any of the occasional cautionary notes he sounded, almost all of them have been subsequently shown to be well-founded. His departure has been as damaging as either of the last three, supposedly long term, managerial appointments (I exclude Les Reed, because he was acting out of a sense of duty, and I don't believe he wanted the job).
Secondly, and this follows on from that, the way the club works has changed, and not for the better. The individual staff are still excellent, and do a tremendous job, but the way some voices from 'on high' have tried to deal with matters such as the Christensen one, is shabby. As soon as it was published, certain people set out on whispering campaigns that the 'figures were wrong'. They claimed to have been involved, to have seen the figures, to know 'what I was up to'. They were wrong, they knew it, and they should have been bold enough to 'front up'. I would add that no member of the communications staff, either current or past, was involved in this. It was others, acting outside of that department, who did it.
Further to that, I began getting things 'whispered' to me by various people, which they plainly hoped I would print. Again, this was done via unusual channels and not via anyone at the club who was or had been involved in talking to the media as part of their job. I checked their stories, and they didn't add up, so they didn't get printed. Their purpose was to try and find out who was telling me things, as they were giving different tit-bits to different people and waiting to see which got printed. It was never going to work, because I work somewhere that checks things and needs to see them confirmed before they're printed - unless there's only one person 'in the know' a story is, when run on that basis, virtually untraceable.
In amongst all the chaos of last season, then, there were people with nothing better to do than to try and discredit the messsenger. And people wonder why results were as bad as they were...
I stand corrected about the fee being £250,000, still too much. Wasn't he signed between p[remier and Championship seasons? By pardew?
Sad state of affairs that our previously thought of as a well run club should have fallen so far. All players should be paid on performance, to some extent, can't we get back to giving them a few quid for goals scored, points gained, clean sheets etc or is there still too much daft money flowing around football?
Thanks for all of that Mick. Terrible but interesting to know. Any idea if other players are on similar yearly increases? Or have some wages in fact gone down due to any relegation clauses?
Fascinating insight though. Whispering campaigns seem to be more prevalent on here than I had imagined.
Razil, they tried to pay him off but he wasn't interested. Basically happy to sit and see out his contract, who wouldn't on those sort of figures because he would get nowhere close elsewhere. You have to trust your Manager but to sanction this was stupidity.
Charlton enhanced their global reputation with the pre-contract signing of Denmark U21 international Martin Christensen on Thursday, which also signalled the start of a three-year collaboration with his current club.
The 19-year-old winger will officially join the Addicks from Herfolge Boldklub on July 1st and the signing was the result of Alan Pardew's scouting team of Phil Chapple and Paul Haverson, who both followed him to The Valley from West Ham United.
Christensen's idol is Manchester United magician Cristiano Ronaldo and, like his hero, the youngster has a few tricks up his sleeve.
"He's a very exciting young player," said Haverson, who joined the club in early January, along with ex-Addicks centre-half and chief scout Chapple.
"He just turned 19 in December and he's already played for the Denmark U21s on three or four occasions that we've watched. We've been to see him play for his club as well and he's one for the future."
The young flanker was identified by Pardew's scouts when he was in charge at Upton Park, where he was invited for a trial.
"We had Martin over at West Ham before Alan left the club and he impressed in two weekly spells over there, so we've got a fairly good knowledge of him," Paul continued.
"He's got a trick or two in his locker and the fans will be excited when they see him because he's one of those sorts of players that likes to get at the opposition and get crosses in and he's got a great shot in both feet.
"He's got ability and if we can nurture that in the right way and he can settle down in London quickly I think you'll see some benefits early on." Herfolge's chief executive Per Rud was also at The Valley on Thursday to seal the agreement between the two clubs.
He echoed Haverson's enthusiasm for the player and was, somewhat surprisingly, pleased to see him leave for a new challenge.
"He has fantastic speed and he has many tricks," Rud said of Christensen, who will play for the Danish First Division club until the end of the current campaign.
"I think the fans will love the tricks he has. The fans already love it in Denmark, but now he's ready to go off on a big adventure to England.
"We are very honoured about this. Many hard years of work at the club have resulted in this and we are very proud that he has signed a professional contract in England."
He added: "I would like to say that they have been watching Martin for a very long time, so it's not a player that they have just found somewhere, it's a player that they have looked at for a long time so I'm pretty sure that he will fit into this team."
Although a friendly between the two clubs is being lined up for the summer, it's the Charlton academy which will benefit from the collaboration deal, with director Steve Gritt to be given first refusal on up and coming players from Herfolge, which has a fine reputation for its youth policy.
But Christensen, who is expected to be in the Denmark U21 squad for upcoming games against France and Greece, will be pushing for a first-team place straight away, according to Haverson.
"I can't see any reason why he won't get into the first team next season," he said. "Alan likes young players and he nurtures them well and I think we will see him quite early, that's my opinion.
"We don't know what league we're going to be in next season at this moment in time but we have to look to the future. We hope it's in the top flight and I think Martin will be of benefit to us whether we're in the Premiership or the Championship."
Paul added: "The collaboration is mainly for the academy. They've got a terrific youth policy over in Denmark.
"It attracts a lot of boys from southern Copenhagen and they've got quite a few young international players there from 15 up to 18, so it's great for Steve Gritt.
"He can take one or two players each year and have a look at them to see if they are up to the standard that he requires, so that collaboration will work nicely for the academy and for the club in the future."
Seems he wanted to get his contract and then decided to rest on his laurels
Anyone know if any players had a wage drop after relegation?[/quote]
All guesswork but......
Gray I would say def the most, Youga had just been released from his previous club as a kid and if Scunthorpe wanted him he can't be on much, Mcleod would not have been on much of a wage at MK Dons so I would have thought/hoped he would be on far less than £5Kpw, Semedo & Racon were both fairly unheard of and young so again should not be on much. Yassin is probably on a lot (compratively) as he was being chased by some big clubs, and Sam signed up when we were still in the Prem i think so will be on a far wedge too. As for Bailey, Southend would not have paid him much and there was not huge competition for his signature that I recmember so maybe similar to £5K p/w
that seems high given his mediocre contributions
I do wonder if he really is as bad as we assume he is. He's just not worth £5k+ a week and £50-100k for making his debut.
It's probably more down to the club not wanting to pay money once he makes his debut, for a player no better than what we have.
I really doubt he's any worse than say Wagstaff. He has played for Denmark's u21 team, he wasn't some completely unknown random player. Unknown to us but not in Denmark.
Agree with that Fanny
I just wonder if the club learned a lesson from Prem relegation and put relegation clauses in new signings contracts - somehow I get the feeling they didn't
Or had he already left before Christiansen signed?
;o)