Monday, August 6 – 1990
Five Liverpool stars, including manager Kenny Dalglish, earned £200,000 or more last season. The League champions will this week reveal their latest title triumph cost them – with bonuses – more than £4m – a massive increase on just 12 months ago when Anfield wages first topped £3m.
The club’s annual report will show manager Kenny Dalglish and four players – certainly including John Barnes, Ian Rush and Peter Beardsley – earned £200,000 or more. That compares with just one employee – Dalglish – who earned that in the previous financial year.
Successful.
It underlines that Liverpool, the country’s most successful club who reclaimed the title from Arsenal last season, are also the big payers of English football.
Championship runners-up Aston Villa’s new accounts published last week showed a wage and bonus payout just half the size of Liverpool’s.
Now the Anfield giants are ready to write out their most lucrative contract of all to keep Barnes, when his present agreement expires next summer, by offering him a new £1m-plus five-year-deal.
It is an incredible change on 30 years ago. Liverpool, then in the Second Division, had a total weekly wage bill for players and training staff of £517 13s 2d with men like Roger Hunt and Ian Callaghan top earners on £23.
(Daily Express, 06-08-1990)
"Play Up, Liverpool" 