Money, money, money, must be funny, in a Russian world. This is the reality at the moment in the European transfer market. But when you check the numbers published by the French magazine basketnews last week about the budgets of French teams, it what is possible for these teams is coming back to earth.
So here are the official numbers in millions of euros, as they have been published by the French League.
1. Le Mans 5.63
2. Nancy 4.98
3. ASVEL 4.97
4. JDA Dijon 4.67
5. Orléans 4.35
6. Chorale de Roanne 4.32
7. Pau-Orthez 4.25
8. Cholet 4.01
9. Chalon-sur-Saone 3.94
10.Gravelines 3.7
11. Strasbourg 3.6
12. Hyères-Toulon 2.72
13. Vichy 2.67
14. Le Havre 2.51
15. Besançon 2.4
16. Rouen 2.28
What is important to note is that these numbers represent total budgets: This means that these numbers include everything from player salaries, taxes, debts, official salaries, transfers to travel costs and so on….
A forum member of French basketinforum posted a nice table which also shows the relationship between total budget and player salaries for every team. Here you can see that in general, only one-third of the total budget is used for the players, with the rest covering other costs. For example, Euroleague teams Le Mans and SLUC Nancy have only €1.86 million and €1.80 million, respectively, which with to sign players for the upcoming season.
Another interesting note is the level of budgets compared to Germany, a league pretty equal in terms of quality. To qualify for the Bundesliga, you must have a budget of at least €1 million, something that brings trouble for promoted teams, for example. The smallest budget in the French league is €2.28 million, however, something that would put the team in the middle of the German league in terms of budgets. But this difference may be explained by the extremely high tax rates that French teams have to pay for their players.
So much for tax-free salaries. This always means that the player does not need to pay the taxes himself, but are taken into account by the team and are paid on their behalf.
I have also added up all the budgets to see if the French teams could together pay the salary of Josh Childress; in fact they could, as their combined salaries would be about €21 million.
