THE Daily Echo can today reveal some of the high salaries that resulted in Saints’ wage bill soaring to 81 per cent of the club’s total income last season.

The figures show that eight first team squad players were earning about £70,000 a week between them.

Strike trio Grzegorz Rasiak, Stern John and Marek Saganowski would have been on £26,000 a week between them – more than £100,000 a month and about £1.2m per year – had they all stayed for the 2008/09 season instead of being sent out on loan.

Rasiak was on £10,000 a week at Saints with John and Saganowski on £8,000 a week.

The most amazing sums, though, show that midfielder Jason Euell was given a two-year contract with a £10,000 a week salary and a £200,000 signing on fee for BOTH his two seasons at St Mary's.

That means Saints will be paying the former Wimbledon, Charlton and Middlesbrough player a startling £720,000 for each year of his contract.

In addition, Andrew Davies was on slightly more than £10,000 a week after completing his move from Middlesbrough during the last January transfer window.

Centre half Wayne Thomas, who is expected to miss the entire 2008/09 campaign through injury, was being paid just under £8,000 a week Rudi Skacel, who cost Saints £1.6m when he was signed from Hearts in the summer of 2006, is on a similar-sized salary to Thomas.

Bradley Wright-Phillips, meanwhile, was being paid £6,500 a week.

On top of all that, Saints have to pay the employers’ national insurance contributions of 12.5 per cent – meaning they pay an extra £90,000 just for Euell, though obviously the players concerned do not get that money.

All the above players were signed between June 2006 and January 2008 – a time in which current PLC chairman Rupert Lowe was away from the club.

The regime put in place by Michael Wilde was instead running the club and organising player contracts.

As revealed in Saints’ annual accounts released in early December, player and coaches wages leapt from 45 per cent of turnover in the financial year ending June 2007 (£10.5m wage bill) to a staggering 81 per cent of turnover 12 months later (£12.1m).

Saints had a total turnover of just £14.9m in the financial year ending June 2008, compared to £23.3m the previous year.

Though the club brought in £12.7m from selling players in 2007/08, they still reported a loss of £4.9m.

Lowe said: “To run a player/coach wage bill of 81 per cent speaks for itself. The only justification for this would have been promotion, but in the event we narrowly avoided relegation.”

A club spokesman said: “We won’t comment on individual player contracts.”

For more Saints news - including the latest on Marek Saganowski, don't miss today's Daily Echo.