DES KELLY: Why Mascherano is top of the strops | Mail Online

Revealed: £5m cost of Cardiff loan star state...

Cardiff City are all fur coat and no knickers. They look expensive, they look the part, but it is all front. Last week I joined the voices questioning why Manchester City's lavish funding of the Craig Bellamy deal is allowed.

Since then, I've gleaned precise figures on Cardiff 's hugely subsidised wage bill and the telephone numbers should alarm every Championship manager, chairman and supporter.

Cardiff's star man, Craig Bellamy, receives £85,000 a week. Yet Cardiff pay just £21,000 of this, with £64,000 being transferred to the Welsh club from City. Another of Cardiff's loan players, Seyi Olofinjana, is paid £27,000 per week, but only £11,000 of that is from the Welsh club's coffers.

The £16,000 shortfall in the Nigerian international's wage comes from Hull City. Jason Koumas receives £29,000 per week. Cardiff pay just £10,000, the remaining £19,000 is wired from Dave Whelan's Wigan Athletic. And Cardiff have just added Wolves striker Andy Keogh to their array of loan sharks. The player earns £22,000 a week and yet Cardiff pay £10,000 of this. Wolverhampton Wanderers cough up the other £12,000.

This means that Cardiff's bid for promotion to the Premier League is being subsidised by other clubs to the tune of somewhere in the region of £5 million. This is more than the entire wage bill for a club like Scunthorpe, who are supposedly competing in the same division.

No wonder Doncaster Rovers chairman John Ryan says he feels 'let down' and complains that 'the integrity of the competition is undermined'. Cardiff are doing what they are allowed to do; they are ruthlessly exploiting the loan system.

But the Football League cannot sit idly by and pretend this is in any way fair. If the Welsh club make it to the Premier League, it will be a sleight of hand comparable to West Ham's infamous escape from relegation with a goal from Carlos Tevez, a player they infamously didn't own.

At Cardiff, half the team is owned by other clubs. If they go up, there will be an almighty street parade in the Welsh city. I just wonder whether they will take a detour via Manchester, Hull, Wigan and Wolverhampton too?

Why would other clubs still pay players who are playing for another club????

As the league is becoming insistant, on clubs living within their means, Surely Cardiff ain't. They are living within other clubs means.

Originally Posted by boro_boy

DES KELLY: Why Mascherano is top of the strops | Mail Online



Why would other clubs still pay players who are playing for another club????

To get their own wage bill down.

---------- Post added at 21:05 ---------- Previous post was at 21:03 ----------

Originally Posted by superally

As the league is becoming insistant, on clubs living within their means, Surely Cardiff ain't. They are living within other clubs means.

Cardiff might be taking advantage of the situation. Who wouldn't if they could get Bellamy for a season on part of his wages? Are Rangers paying all of Vlad Weiss's wages this season?

Cardiff shouldn't be playing in the English league because, if anyone's noticed, Cardiff is in Wales.