RUFC - Chairman on Players Wages

Rotherham United Chairman, Denis Coleman, has denied that high players wages added to the cash problems at Millmoor, although he does admit that they could have been cut but believes that doing that would have led to bigger losses through lower gate numbers.

Speaking to The Advertiser about the one million pound wage budget he said, 'In reality the wage budget should have been around £500,000 or £600,000 but who is to say, if it had been, that crowd figures wouldn't have dropped to around 2,500?

'People don't realise that if only five hundred less come to the game then that is a loss of £7,000 on the gate and could go up to £10,000 because of less spent in the ground. That adds up to a massive amount over the season. Yes, you can cut your wage bill at one end but lose supporters at the other.

'We also have to pay 17.5% of everything that comes in to the taxman.'

People are still questioning what happened to the cash the club received from the sale of Will Hoskins and Lee Williamson to Watford after the Chairman had said it would get us through to the end of the season. Mr Coleman said that the cash should have got us through but there were unforeseen costs at Millmoor plus the insurance shortfall from the damage caused by the floods. From this deal, the Millers still have £100,000 to come from Watford if they get back to the Premiership while Hoskins and Williamson are still employed by them.