West Ham United may break wage structure after new Mats Hummels transfer update
West Ham United would likely make Mats Hummels one of their top earners if they were to push ahead with a free transfer, according to Dan Plumley.
The Hammers have held talks with the World Cup winner’s representatives [HITC, 17 June] about a potential move to the London Stadium this summer, after he left Borussia Dortmund at the end of his contract.
The finance expert believes that the Hammers may need to break their wage structure to complete the signing given the average pay at the club.
“The plus side of that is that you’ve got no transfer fee, so that enables you to push the package up in terms of wages,” he exclusively told West Ham Zone. “That’s potentially a positive.
“The other side of that is how much do you want to break whatever structure you’ve got for that particular player, or does that mean that everybody else has got to come in line with that because that’s always an interesting squad dynamic?
“It’s really tricky to always get an actual sense on the numbers because you’re dealing with aggregate figures and don’t know the separation between player wages and non-player wages, but if you look at West Ham spending about £136m on wages in their last accounts, let’s assume about 80 per cent of that is player wages, it gets you to about £110m.
“For a squad of about 25, it gives you an average salary of about £4.3m per year, per player, which is quite conservative but in the right ballpark.
“That’s an average of about £84k per week. There will be outliers within that, plus and minus, but if that’s the kind of ballpark averages you’re working off, you’re putting a player like that on £100k per week as one of your top earners.
“I guess you’ve got the financial dynamic of free transfer versus wage package which you can stretch a bit, but you’ve also got to consider the squad dynamic and how that affects the rest of the squad as well in terms of wages cost.”
West Ham United to sign Mats Hummels on a free transfer?
Hummels leaving Dortmund was a surprise to many considering he had just helped the club reach the UEFA Champions League final, but West Ham are looking to bring him to the Premier League.
There is likely to be plenty of competition for his signature considering his quality and experience, but his wages could prove to be a problem for a lot of sides who aren’t competing for trophies or at the top end of the table regularly.
That could give Julen Lopetegui and Tim Steidten a big advantage in the race for his signature, and considering the club will seemingly have plenty of players earning a similar amount it’s unlikely to cause problems.
Hummels would be a great signing and with Kurt Zouma and Nayef Aguerd [Hakim Zhouri, 11 May] both seeing their futures up in the air, it could be a perfect storm.
In other West Ham news, one star has switched agents ahead of a potential London Stadium exit.
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