Low-powered incentives

This, I'm told, is the payslip of John Arne Riise, perhaps the world's best-paid bankrupt.
What's curious is just how low the bonus payments are, relative to his basic wage; appearance money and points bonuses account for just 3.5% of basic salary, albeit (I guess) for the month of August when only a few games were played anyway.
This suggests incentives are quite low-powered at Liverpool.
Which raises the question: is this rational? The case for bigger incentives might seem obvious - they'd motivate players more.
But there is a case for lower incentives. There's the Yerkes-Dodson effect, which says excessive motivation can lead to worse performance - a fact corroborated by some cunning economic experiments.   And high incentives might lower team morale, if players' disappointment at losing money causes them be become more critical of team-mates' errors.
Which raises the question. What is the optimum ratio of basic pay to incentives for players? Might it vary from team to team, or even from position to position?

Comments

[dearieme]

You didn't blot out his NI number. Shame on you.

[Chris C]

I'd have thought someone earning that much cashola wouldn't PAYE...

[Surreptitious Evil]

Surely the "Cham Lea Sal Incr" at some 12.8% counts as a performance bonus of sorts? Similar in %age, if not value, to the profit share of retail bank workers below exec level?

[Jon Gregory]

When Mr Shankly was Manager the players wages were driven by success, so much for a win, position in league table, number of spectators etc were all major factors in players pay.
Happy Days!!!

[Surreptitious Evil]

And a BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/7071296.stm) mention too. All in a day's blogging :)

[reason]

Your missing the real incentive payments because they aren't there. It is the change in what Mr Riise could earn somewhere else.