Sir David Murray’s famous quote that for every fiver Celtic spend he’ll spend a tenner has officially been reversed- and more- with hoops players taking home almost three times the salary of their Ibrox equivalents during 2015.
What Murray failed to mention was that Celtic were paying income tax and national insurance on player salaries while Rangers (IL) preferred to use more creative ways of paying their players.
Eventually Murray had to accept £1 for his stake in Rangers with Craig Whyte left holding the baby as liquidation followed administration.
Catching up with Celtic seems to be the only purpose of the Ibrox tribute act but the Global Sports Salary Survey for 2015 reveals that Celtic are paying their players more than double the money stars like Lee Wallace and Lee McCulloch were picking up.
In 2015 Celtic’s first team players were being paid an average of £901,943 which works out at £17,345 per week. Over at Ibrox the average first team salary in 2015 was £317,000 working out at £6,000 per week to play against second tier opponents.
The lowest payers in the Premier League were Ross County where the average first team salary was £36,000 giving players a weekly top line of £692.
Celtic’s salary structure bumps up the SPL average but according to the survey first team players at clubs such as Motherwell, St Johnstone and Kilmarnock were picking up around £1,300/week before tax.
Hearts, who topped the Championship in 2015, had an average salary of £64,000/year which was slightly below the levels being paid by Motherwell and St Johnstone.
Despite paying their players three times the average Ibrox pay packet Celtic haven’t had a going concern warning in their annual accounts and also have an overdraft facility with Co-op Bank.
CLICK HERE for deluded Boyd blames ‘Rangers relegation’ for Scotland’s problems
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