Payroll covers all the people employed by the club, from the players, through the board members, through to the match day tea-lady.
The payroll was £45m for the 03 and 04 seasons leapt to over £50m in 2005 and rose again to £52.2m in 2006. ** The 2006 numbers are for 11 months rather than the 12 months of previous years. If it had been for 12 months the figure would have been £56.6m. To try and show the trend accurately the graphs below use the larger number rather than the one the club showed for the 11 month "year". **
Because the numbers are so large the club like to talk about the ratio of payroll to the amount of money coming in to the club. (Try and work out for yourself how much the players must be getting paid.) So for example in 2004 the payroll was £44.9m and the income was £90.8m, a ratio of just under 50% which is widely seen as an acceptable ratio. The 2005 figures were very high at 58%, the 2006 figures are exceptionally high at 68%. This is due to bringing in high-earning players like Carr, Butt, Owen, Luque, and Duff while the income of the club is dropping. The club also had what it called 'exceptional' costs of £2.4m, in 2005 and £3.1m in 2006, to do with the change in management during those seasons. The club have had these 'exceptional' costs 4 times in the last 9 years.
The blip in 2000 was from not having a Cup run, and having to pay out for lots of new players on big wages.
The big leap in payroll in 2003 was said to have come from bonuses paid due to Champions League progress. Why it stayed so high the subsequent seasons, hasn't been commented on in the clubs financial accounts. The leap during 2005 was very large, and the trend upwards continued in 2006.
In 2004-2005 season the Premier League sides as a whole had a 3% drop in their wage bill while NUFC had a rise of 12%.
