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 are fairly steady with small increases in years when the team performs well, and player win bonuses kick in. It is important for the club that they have a control over player contracts that link extra payments to success, and conversely that the club is not tied into long, high-value contracts that would drag them down if relegation happened.

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 a youth development system, putting on games, maintaining the ground etc. In the Aberdeen accounts for 2006 a comment is made that the target 'industry recommended' target is 60%.

The wages figure for Kilmarnock is different from all other SPL clubs because of the huge number of people employed in the hotel. Assuming that the hotel employs a lot of people on lower wages compared to the amount the players are paid make both the total, and the ratio difficult to analyse.

The wages ratio shows that wages seem to be under control, but with the hotel included this is not really a reliable measure. The total wages are not that high though. Hibs have a higher wage bill, Falkirk and Dundee United have wages of between £2m and £3m which is probably what Kilmarnock's non-hotel wages come to.