Pay scale: Owen Oyston received £11million in
director's pay at Blackpool - more than title winner Wayne Rooney
was paid by Manchester United and more than Blackpool manager Ian
Holloway, star player Charlie Adam and all his team-mates
combined
When Blackpool embarked on their historic first -
and so far only - season in the Premier League, chairman Karl
Oyston railed at the 'mad world' of 'arms race' salary payments and
poured scorn on players chasing money above all
else.
'Sometimes, I think ambition goes out of the window in
favour of personal financial gain,' he said at the time. His words
may now come back to haunt him.
For Blackpool's financial accounts for that 2010-11
campaign, filed in the past 48 hours and relating to their first
season in the top flight for 39 years, reveal that one of
Blackpool's six directors was paid a staggering £11 million in
remuneration for the season that ended with the club's relegation
back to the Championship.
And the unnamed director, paid through his company,
Zabaxe, was the chairman's father, Blackpool's multi-millionaire
majority shareholder, Owen Oyston.
Asked to confirm the identity of the £11m director, Karl
Oyston told The Mail on
Sunday: 'The payment was made to Zabaxe Ltd.'
Documents lodged at Companies House show the colourful and
controversial 78-year-old, Owen Oyston, and his wife, Vicki, as the
two directors of Zabaxe.
The company's two ordinary shares are both owned by Owen
Oyston.
Already supporters, politicians, players and industry
observers have condemned the £11m director's remuneration as
'shocking' and 'barely believable'.
Confirmation: Karl Oyston said the sum was paid to
Zabaxe
Malcolm Clarke, the chairman of the
Football Supporters' Federation, said: 'It defies credibility that
this is a reasonable remuneration for one club director in a single
year. This makes some of the bankers' bonuses almost look like
small change.
'Football clubs are community assets and it's
inappropriate for anyone to use them as a vehicle for payouts of
anything approaching this magnitude. Even by the standards of
"Planet Football" this is barely believable.'
The club's accounts, filed at Companies House, reveal that
club directors were paid £11,067,554, and that the best-paid
director, now revealed to be Oyston, received £11m.
That remuneration smashes every pay record for a
non-player in English football and puts Blackpool's majority
shareholder among the global game's highest earners for a single
season, whether it is players, managers or club
executives.
The sum equates to earnings of £211,538 a week and only
Wayne Rooney, understood to be on a basic deal worth around
£200,000 a week at Manchester
United, plus some players at Manchester City, currently come
anywhere close in the Premier League - the world's richest
league.
But while Rooney won the title with United last season,
Oyston, worth an estimated £80m last year, was rewarded with his
bumper pay packet despite the club being relegated.
Fans' reactions have ranged from the outraged to the
barely printable.
One supporter, a member of the club-affiliated Blackpool
Supporters' Association and prepared to speak only under condition
of anonymity, said: 'There's an argument that a club can do what
they like with their money but it's excessive and will be
completely unacceptable to many fans, who expect club-generated
money to go back into the club.'
Another fan was more succinct in a post on an internet
message board. The post said simply: 'Kerching! Oyston.
Parasite.'
Tribunal: Charlie Adam fought Blackpool over a an
unpaid £25,000 bonus
A third claimed the director's payment was
'nothing short of shocking and scandalous'.
Oyston's remuneration at the expense of one of the great
club names of English football tarnishes the illustrious history of
a club that have contributed some of the game's most evocative
moments, including the 1953 'Matthews Final' win at
Wembley.
The payment also puts into sharper focus the job done by
manager Ian Holloway last season on a meagre budget.
The £11m paid to a single director is understood to be
more than for the wages paid to Blackpool's first-team squad and
the manager combined during their one season in the Premier
League.
The Mail on
Sunday understands that the players earned around £9.6m in
wages and Holloway £400,000.
Blackpool missed out on Premier League survival in the
final game of last season, and then by only a single
point.
Fan Chris Walker told The Mail on Sunday: 'Holloway and his
team worked wonders, but having come so close you do wonder what
could have been achieved with the purse strings loosened just a
little bit.
Heartbreak: Blackpool's inaugural season in the Premier
League ended with a 3-2 defeat at Old Trafford
'Norwich and Swansea are showing this season how
far sensible levels of investment can take you and there is a
nagging feeling of regret that Blackpool could easily be in their
shoes had the Oyston family sanctioned more investment on the
playing side.
'Having now seen the amount taken out of the club in
directors' pay, these emotions are heightened further.'
Blackpool were involved in high-profile disagreements with
players over bonuses last season. Charlie Adam, captain during the
Premier League year, took his employers to a tribunal to force the
payment of a £25,000 bonus that should have kicked in when
Blackpool guaranteed their Championship status in
2009-10.
A source close to the Liverpool and Scotland midfielder
said: 'That Charlie had to go to a tribunal over a £25,000 bonus in
the year Blackpool got promoted, and then the owner takes £11m in
one go is just unbelievable.
'Charlie only took that action because there were others
not getting their bonuses. It actually cost him money when his
legal fees were taken into account. This £11m payment beggars
belief.'
Frustrated: Holloway
Chris Walker adds: 'It is very disappointing to
see that there was clearly money in the club that could have been
used to fund the playing side and had this director taken a salary
in line with his Premier League counterparts, Holloway could have
had more resources at his disposal.'
Oyston's £11m bonanza is put in stark context when set
against executive pay at England's biggest clubs.
Manchester City's former CEO, Garry Cook, earned £2m in
2010-11. Manchester United's directors were paid a total £1.72m for
football club business in 2010-11, at a club with an income almost
£300m more than Blackpool.
Arsenal CEO Ivan
Gazidis earned £1.7m in 2010-11, comprising £1m salary, £600,000
bonus and £100,000 pension contribution.
Oyston banked six and a half times as much as Gazidis for
overseeing a club that went back down to the Championship, albeit
having earned a record income of £51.7m, of which £40m came from
Premier League central funds. Blackpool actually made a £20.9m
profit from their Premier League season.
'In the long term, the major concern as a Blackpool fan is
that the legacy of our sole Premier League season could disappear,'
said Chris Walker.
'There have been some improvements to Bloomfield Road
itself, but the promised new training ground has yet to yield
anything tangible with the players still having to use antiquated
facilities.
'It is vital that the club still has something to show for
its top flight adventure in 15-20 years' time and with such large
amounts being taken out of by a single director, one wonders
whether the future of the club is as bright as it may appear to
some outsiders.'
The club's total wage bill, for all 127 staff, was £12.1m
in 2010-11, which was actually lower than the £12.6m wage bill of
2009-10. That £12.1m included pay for 67 employees as well as for
all the club's players of all ages, Holloway and his
coaches.
The senior players were subject to a £10,000-per-week pay
ceiling.
Holloway, at different times, has been frustrated with the
limits placed on his spending, and is understood to have been close
to walking away.
As recently as last month he talked about his first
meeting with Karl Oyston when he was interviewed for the job in a
Preston hotel.
Holloway claims he said to Oyston: 'I suppose I'd better
order the coffee because I've heard you're a right tight so and
so.'
There is nothing illegal in the £11m remuneration to a
director but many observers, and politicians, believe there should
be legislation to stop such sums being paid.
Tom Greatrex, a Labour MP with a longstanding record of
working with fans' groups and campaigning on governance issues,
says: 'It is genuinely shocking that someone can profit to that
extent, especially from a club whose public attitude to gaining
promotion was premised on thrift.
'This case underlines the lack of scrutiny of what matters
in our national game, and the Sports Minister is right when he says
change is overdue.
'Supporters have a profound emotional investment in their
clubs and it's only right they should know where the money flows.
While nobody expects all club owners are acting purely from the
goodness of their hearts, this is a truly shocking.'