For Mathieu Debuchy, leaving Arsenal, where he was likely earning a decent wage, certainly wasn’t a financial decision.
Transferring to Saint-Etienne in France after the Gunners agreed to terminate his contract early, the 32-year-old right-back likely took a big salary cut when saying yes to the Ligue 1 side’s demands.
Operating with a wage cap set at €90k/month, the French side have seven players in the squad on the maximum amount, including the former Arsenal defender.
According to L’Equipe on Tuesday, Debuchy joins the likes of Yann M’Vila, Stéphane Ruffier, Paul-Georges Ntep, Loic Perrin, Never Subotic and Rémy Cabella as the club’s top earner, although he’s likely to be getting a little bit more on the side.
For example, with bonuses, the French newspaper reckon Stéphane Ruffier is on about £53k/week, while Yann M’Vila, who was on around £110k/week at Rubin Kazan, will get a percentage of his next transfer fee.
No details have leaked about Debuchy, but we highly doubt he’ll “only” be earning €90k a month.
Still, it’ll be a lot less than whatever he earned at Arsenal, which was rumoured to be around £70k/week.
