Payroll covers all the people employed by the club, from the players, through the board members, through to the match day tea-lady.
There are two areas to watch. The obvious one is that that the wages just don't get too high. The graph shows that the wages seem to be stuck in the low thirty millions, expect when the team does particularly well. Celtic would seem to have put in place a good old-fashioned bonus system. When the team gets the results, and the crowds increase then the bonuses will kick in for the players. This ensures the club don't get caught paying too much. A good comparison is Newcastle who grew their wage bill hugely when they had a good CL run, then never managed to get it under control again.
The second area to keep an eye on is the ratio of the wages to the income. Deloittes who do some in-depth analysis of football finances reckon the target for this ratio should be 50%. This allows the club to cope with the costs of running the business, buying the occasional player, running an youth development system, putting on games, maintaining the ground etc. Celtic are struggling to hit the 50% but no too badly. Again Newcastle is a good comparison. The ratio has two parts to it and as well as keeping wages under control, the issue can be transformed by making income higher.
The 2007 results as expected show that the wages have gone up, but the ratio has gone down. The rise overall is due to bonuses for the Champions League progress. The drop in the ratio is because even though there were bonuses they were more than paid for from the extra money earned by actually playing in the Champions League
The 2008 figure shows rise in wages, and in the ratio. Both Rangers and Celtic seem keen to compare themselves to English Premiership clubs whose collective ratio is around 63%, and makes them both look good. This is fair enough if that is who the competition is seen to be. The English Premiership wages are dominated by Chelsea who skew the whole figure by paying way over what the club can afford due to their owner.
Celtic need to be careful that fixed wages do not become too high, and that bonuses are used well to reward good results.
