Manchester United's David Gill Is Highest Paid Premier League Director On £2m A Year

Manchester United have the top earning player and now they have the top earning director too, a Goal.com UK investigation can reveal.

A study of the 20 Premier League clubs has shown that United chief executive David Gill is the best paid current director with a salary of £1.953 million.

United’s latest set of accounts for the year ending June 2010, which were filed last week, appeared to place the Carling Cup winners at the top of the Premier League pay league, narrowly ahead of Arsenal.

Chief executive Ivan Gazidis earned £1.718m in his first full year at Emirates Stadium, including a £938,000 salary, a £669,000 bonus and benefits of £111,000.

Unsurprisingly, the third best renumerated director is Manchester City’s Garry Cook, whose salary, based on figures for the 2008-09 season, is £1.518m, more than a 300 per cent increase on the best paid City director in 2007-08, whose pay package was £477,000.

Intriguingly, Gill, who was described by manager Sir Alex Ferguson as a “brilliant man” last week but has come under criticism from fans for maintaining his public support of the Glazer regime, is earning almost twice as much as when United was a PLC. In the last financial year before the Americans took over the club in 2005, Gill’s pay package was £1.009m.

Arsenal have also amply rewarded their chief executive during a season in which they failed to lift a trophy for the fifth consecutive season but delivered a sparkling set of accounts with club record pre-tax profits of £56m. Gazidis’ package is nearly double that of his predecessor Keith Edelman, who earned £1.056m before leaving Arsenal in 2008.

Goal.com UK’s figures are based on the 20 Premier League clubs’ latest set of financial results from either the 2009-10 season or, in most cases, 2008-09. This explains why even Gill and Gazidis lag far behind Chelsea’s former manager Luiz Felipe Scolari, possibly the highest paid football executive ever in Britain.

The Brazilian, who received £3.231m during his seven months in charge including compensation for leaving the club, is something of an anomaly as he sat on the Chelsea board, a privilege denied to any of his predecessors or his successors Guus Hiddink and Carlo Ancelotti.

Club	Highest-paid director	Pay	Turnover	Loss/Profit before tax
	Luiz Felipe Scolari (Peter Kenyon)	£3.231m (£2m)	£185.6m	£47m loss
	David Gill (David Gill)	£1.953m (£1.838m)	£286.4m	£79.7m loss
	Ivan Gazidis	£1.718m	£379.9m	£56m profit
	Garry Cook	£1.515m (£477,000)	£125m	£121m loss
	Rick Parry (Rick Parry)	£1.12m (£1.12m)	£185m	£54.9m loss
	Assumed to be Niall Quinn (Niall Quinn)	£888,142 (£939,317)	£64.5m	£24.2m loss
	Derek Llambias (Chris Mort)	£762,763 (£1.357m)	£85.7m	£14.6m loss
	Daniel Levy (Daniel Levy)	£650,000 (£1m)	£113m	£33.4m profit
	Jeremy Moxey (Jeremy Moxey)	£600,178 (£384,235)	£18.3m	£4.4m loss
	Phil Gartside (Alan Duckworth)	£584,000 (£376,000)	£52.4m	£8.7m loss
	Assumed to be Jeremy Peace (Jeremy Peace)	£543,000 (£625,000)	£47m	£12.3m loss
	Karren Brady (Karren Brady)	£466,137 (£345,590)	£27.5m	£20.1m loss
	Scott Duxbury (Scott Duxbury)	£349,000 (£474,000)	£76.1m	£16.2m loss
	John Williams (John Williams)	£323,433 (£294,654)	£50.9m	£3.6m profit
	Robert Elstone (Keith Wyness)	£244,000 (£470,000)	£79.7m	£6.9m loss
	Assumed to be Paul Faulkner (Richard Fitzgerald)	£229,592 (£1.044m inc. £775,000 comp.)	£84.2m	£30.1m loss
	David McNally (David McNally)	£137,035 (£228,083)	£63.1m	£5.8m loss
	Brenda Spencer	Undisclosed	£46.3m	£5.8m loss
	Information unavailable	Information unavailable	£6.9m	£1.2m loss
	No directors paid	n/a	£53.5m	£503,000 profit

The salaries of the leading executives demonstrate that the lavish pay culture at the top of the English game does not just apply to the players.

Wayne Rooney became the highest paid player in British football last week with a package believed to be worth more than £200,000, including image rights and bonuses.

But English football’s leading executives continue to be paid well above the average in companies of comparable size elsewhere in the economy.

At least five Premier League clubs - United, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Liverpool - pay their top director more than £1m a year. The other member of the ‘big six’ turning over more than £100m, Tottenham, paid their chairman Daniel Levy £350,000 less in 2008-09 than the £1m package he earned the previous season but he is entitled to a bonus for the last financial year which is likely to take his salary comfortably into seven figures once again.

At the clubs where figures are available only three clubs, Aston Villa, Everton and Fulham paid their leading executives less than £300,000 a year. Stoke City did not pay any of their directors in their first Premier League season.

Those in receipt of the handsome salaries will argue that the highly public nature of modern football – and the pressures that go with it – justifies the salaries paid to those who run the show.

But with the recession continuing to hit supporters’ wallets and the struggles that many clubs have had simply to stay afloat the issue of executive pay is likely to continue.