Following yesterday's lovely spreadsheet of average SPL player wages in 2010/11, two readers requested a table ranking teams by the relationship of their league points totals to their average wages. As Hearts fans they clearly didn't have an ulterior motive.

Unlike Jennifer Lopez, the bottom is far less interesting than the top. After all, you can spend/promise as much as you want on wages, but you can never win more than 112 points (I think) in a season. 

So congratulations for an excellent performance Caley Thistle, and probably a big shout out to Dundee United, I think!

ESPN released the results of the Sportingintelligence Global Salary Survey of 288 world sports teams' player wages yesterday, including all 12 2010/11 SPL teams. And the interesting news is that Hamilton weren't bottom!

The Wee Man's translated the SPL sides' figures back into Britcash (at 62p per US Dollar). Here you go: 

Source: http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/7850531/espn-magazine-sportingintelligence-global-salary-survey-espn-magazine

As you've probably noticed by now, I'm mostly concentrating my communications strategy on Twitter, at @footballweeman

So Hearts have blamed their ‘fringe’ players for the fact that they’re late paying the squad’s wages again. Presumably they think these players shouldn’t have accepted the contracts that Hearts offered them. What are Hearts like!? What are they like!? The Wee Man’s going to tell you what they’re like. Oh yes, the Wee Man’s going to tell you seven things that Hearts are like:

They’re like biting off more than you can chew and then blaming your stomach for being sick.

They’re like taking on four concurrent paper rounds with four different newsagents, dumping the papers in that old shed behind the betting shop, and demanding to know how all those newsagents thought you could deliver all those papers.

They’re like running before you can walk then blaming your legs when you fall and bruise your shins.

They’re like having eight children and then blaming them when you don’t buy them any Christmas presents.

They’re like taking out a 110% mortgage for a house you can’t afford and then acting all surprised when the bank get shirty because you’re not keeping up with your repayments (how did they expect you to make repayments like that?).

They’re like seeing three high-class hookers every night and then blaming their prices when you can’t afford to pay them. Interestingly, this is known as ‘The Wee Man Defence’ and it rarely works.

They’re like a satirical football blogger claiming they’re going to come up with seven decent examples, then only coming up with six, and desperately trying to find anyone other than themselves to blame.

It's the new format for match previews. I wonder if it will catch on?

It’s great to hypothesise wildly, isn’t it? I love it almost as much as I hate negative clichés. And – like I tell Mrs Wee Man when I return home with mischief on my mind and a gas bill in my pocket – I like to start with the fun and worrying about annoying things later.

So, let’s start this lecture with my hypothesis: Rangers enter liquidation and Celtic migrate, Dick Whittington-esque, to the bright lights of the English Premier League. Let’s not forget the bottom line: Premier League Chief Executive Richard Scudamore loves a global brand as much as Little Miss Wee Man loves a flying fox.

Which brings me to the negative cliché. If I hear one more person say that Scottish football without Celtic or Rangers will ‘sink to League of Ireland or Welsh Premier League levels’, I think I will tut, and shake my little plastic head in frustration.

Average attendance in the League of Ireland? Roughly 1600. Average attendance in the Welsh Premier League? 329. Attendance at Hearts’ last home league match? 13,176. Hibs? 9211. Hearts knocked some Hungarians out of Europe this season; Dundee United were unlucky to lose to Poles. So the far less devastating truth is that we might drift to Norwegian, Swedish, Danish or Polish levels. Is that really so bad? The ‘gang of ten’ don’t need Rangers any more than Malmö, FC Copenhagen, Rosenberg or Wisła Kraków need them (although Malmo may be sorry to see the back of them).

Combining Dunfermline’s recent money woes with a pocket calculator, it seems that each club would lose roughly £340,000 each season in away gate receipts without Celtic or Rangers, mitigated by the income they’d receive from whoever replaced them. The currently paltry TV income would be reduced too.

But surely attendances at Pittodrie, Tannadice, Fir Park, etc would rise in a league without Celtic and Rangers? As we’ve surely established by now, predictability is the enemy of excitement. Imagine this season without Rangers or Celtic: Hearts start as favourites, narrowly ahead of Dundee United, but Motherwell do brilliantly, with St Johnstone close behind, before a late charge from the Arabs cancels out their early season problems? I’d pay to watch that. So, if Rangers are liquidated, the ‘Gang of Ten’ can deal with them with the same impunity that the SFL dished out to Airdrie, judging them based on the event rather than on who they are. I don’t care what Chick Young or Neil Doncaster say.

Oh, and if Celtic stay in Scotland? I really hope they’ll agree to a significant redistribution of income, for the long-term good of every club in the country.

After bravely revealing that ex-Rangers player Gregg Wylde wouldn’t sign for Celtic if they hypothetically asked him to sign for them, the Scottish Sun secures other shocking revelations:

Jim McLean absolutely rules out the possibility of ever playing for Aberdeen, even if they asked him really nicely.

Alex Salmond makes it absolutely clear that there’s no way he’d ever consider accepting the leadership of the Conservative Party, in any circumstances.

BOTH Peter Tatchell AND Richard Dawkins state, unequivocally, that there’s no way they’d ever join the Westboro Baptist Church.

And the leader of the big-endian Lilliputians in Gulliver’s Travellers admits that he could never accept a hypothetical offer to lead the little-endian Lilliputians.

Look, I’m not an expert, right? But if I was an administrator called in to a football club with players on huge wages (and when are administrators ever called in to clubs where the players aren’t on huge wages?) I know the first thing I’d do. Before I got myself a black coffee and a sparkling water. Before I took my imitation-Steven Pressley coat off. Before I found out where the biscuit drawer was. I’D ASK THE PLAYERS TO TAKE A PAY CUT.

A couple of hours ago (look, sometimes I am topical!) Rangers boss Ally McCoist said he wouldn’t rule out player pay cuts, but that they haven’t been discussed yet. WHY NOT!? There are players at Rangers reportedly on £20,000 to £30,000 a week. Yet the Police have had to threaten to postpone matches until bills are paid, and Dunfermline don’t seem convinced that they’re going to get their ticket money from Rangers’ visit to East End Park a couple of weeks ago. If six or seven top-earning Rangers players took half-pay for one week, that would pay the £80,000 upon which Dunfermline are so reliant. 

According to the latest available figures, Rangers have been paying out over half a million pounds in wages every WEEK. If the playing staff’s wages had been halved as soon as Duff and Phelps walked through the door, we’d already be looking at a couple of hundred thousand that could go to more deserving creditors. I mean, what do these players need all that money for!? The ‘market forces’ argument flies out the window when clubs can’t afford it. Most of us manage on well under £1000 a week. Are they worried they won’t be able to afford enough polish for their solid gold top hats? That they won’t be able to pay for their space shuttle’s MOT?

I presume there’s some sort of boring contractual issues involved, but if these administrators want to save this 139-year-old football club, why haven’t they at least asked the players if they’d be willing to take a bit of a hit? Anyone would think they had something better to do. Like trying to find out where all that money is.

Some people think the SPL doesn’t even have a fit and proper persons test! The Wee Man’s pleased to say I can finally put such scurrilous rumours to bed, because my mole, Jamie, has struck again. He’s secured a copy of a fit and proper persons test recently approved by the SPL. Here it is: