Player wages in Rotherham United's most recent Championship campaign

The Millers' latest accounts, covering last term's 2023/24 relegation campaign, show a wage bill of £12.9 million, which is the biggest in the club's history.

The figure includes all employees but leading football-finance expert Kieran Maguire has shed light on how much of it is likely to have been taken up by the playing squad.

"UEFA say it's normally around two-thirds to three-quarters," the university lecturer who is also the man behind the respected ‘Price of Football’ podcast told the Advertiser.

“I did my sums – and these are very rough sums – and I would say the players were probably, on average, on five to six grand a week.”

That compares to an overall average across the second tier of £13,000.

Some of Rotherham's players will have been on much more than £6,000. Striker Jordan Hugill was earning a weekly sum into five figures and there may have been others.

The average will have been reduced by young players earning low amounts.

The Millers' wage total was the smallest in the division but still represented a major outlay by their standards.

Chairman Tony Stewart handed a significant recruitment budget to then-manager Matt Taylor who had led Rotherham to Championship safety in the previous campaign.

Taylor's policy in the summer of 2023 of signing over-30s with plenty of second-tier experience backfired when most of them spent long periods on the injury list and the club suffered the drop.

Maguire says that Rotherham benefit from the presence of Stewart who built his fortune through his firm, ASD Lighting, and puts in around £1m a year in sponsorship.

The chairman recoups that money by charging a similar amount for the rent of AESSEAL New York Stadium, the ground he owns through another company of his, R U Estates Limited.

Maguire describes Stewart's approach as “very generous”.

“When you look at Rotherham's income, they're getting £1m a year from ASD Lighting,” he said. “That's more than they would get in normal circumstances from an independent commercial partner.

“I know that Tony effectively gets that back through charging rent on the stadium. What else do you expect to happen? If the club don't own the stadium, they have to pay rent.”

By comparison, Dejphon Chansiri charges Sheffield Wednesday £2.6m annually for the rent of Hillsborough.

“The Rotherham rent is reasonable,” Maguire said. “Effectively, because of the ASD sponsorship, they're there rent-free.”

This term, the Millers are operating on their highest-ever League One playing budget but are in the bottom half of the table and have no chance of making it five successive promotions from the division.

Maguire says the third tier has been skewed by the unprecedented level of investment at some clubs

“This season is slightly different because Birmingham City have blown everyone out of the water and you've got Wrexham (bankrolled by Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney) with their very special circumstances,” he said.

“The new Huddersfield Town owners appear willing to splash the cash as well.”