After a day of being on edge and struggling for the inspiration for something to write, I found myself unfairly attacking my other half (the better half in this situation!) on the unbelievable wages of football players. While he was innocently talking about his most respected football manager Manchester’s Alex Ferguson, I went on a tirade about how footballers are all spoilt brats and they are paid far too much money to simply play a game. The recent £136 million spent so far by Real Madrid to buy both Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaka my case in point, given the latest projections of unemployment set to reach three million by next year.
Well, to say the other half and his father were taken aback would be an understatement, to the point where I was advised that maybe I had found my passion on what to write about in an article. So I sheepishly retreated after the better half gave me a look to relax and stop cursing as everybody in the pub was slightly perturbed! Not my finest moment, I will admit, but the massive expenditure had really worked its way up my skirt. So here it is, more calmly put in print, my feelings on the exuberant amount of cash paid to young men to play a game, that is kept popular by the love of the fans.
Arriving in the UK only 18 months ago, the first of the wild wages I was to hear about was the talk of £230 million for the trade of AC Milan’s Brazilian midfielder, Kaka. In a state of disbelief I had to confer with the other half to make sure this was not a faux par and he assured me this was indeed a legitimate request. The deal was not met in the end, but Kaka, is estimated to earn £6.9 million a year, which translates to a staggering £138,000 a week. More than I am likely to make in 8 years of hard grafting. This deal demonstrates that its not just the players skills that are in demand, but how much sponsorship support their popularity can bring to a team. The passion for playing for the love of a team or the glory of winning seems, no doubt, to have been replaced for the highest price-tag, pulling the game, it’s players and its supporters into an ever-increasing monetary transaction.
With the abolition of the maximum wage in 1961, wages have continued on the rise ever since. As with many other sports, tennis and golf included, the sponsorship opportunities have also created an extra niche of income for players. It can be argued that players dedicate their lives to the sport for people to enjoy, but then again, nurses dedicate their hours to keep people alive. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a common path to take, one mention of nurses and indignation and off we go: young, overpaid idiots with no taste or moral guidelines. But it seems that this is more often then not true.
The big houses, the flashy cars (and women) all come at a cost, a big cost. While the gap between the working class fans struggling from week to week and the overpaid football player continues to stretch.
Fulham chairman Mohamed Al Fayed, seems to share my distaste for the “crazy” wages, agreeing it is bringing the game into disrepute. Al Fayed recently posted a message on his club website calling for major changes to football’s finances: “Take my crusade against sky-high players’ wages. Our expenses bill rose by 17 per cent last year. How can it be right for top players to be earning £15m to £20m a year? It’s crazy. These wages need to be capped.” Preaching to the converted Al Fayed!
Primarily an affective cap prevents wealthy (top four) teams from destructive behaviours, such and signing streams of ‘star’ players, to prevent rival teams from access to talented players, commanding a tight stranglehold on the league. With a salary cap each club has roughly the same economic power to attract players, which contributes to equity in the game and also ensures the crazy wages demanded by football players are a thing of the past.
But it seems it’s not just the money they are paid for playing, but the money they are paid when they‘re behaving badly. Subject in question, Joey Barton who, despite being a convicted criminal was still earning £143,000 in image rights from Newcastle while serving a six month stint in prison for an abhorrent attack on a teenager outside McDonalds. This comes after previous club Manchester City had been close to sacking him in 2004 after he ‘accidentally’ stubbed out a cigar in the eye of young team player Jamie Tandy at their Christmas party and in 2005 he was sent home from a summer tour of Thailand after a fight with a 15-year-old Everton fan. You can guarantee that if you or I were convicted of assault, we would lose our job, respect, and much chance of ever finding suitable employment for the rest of our life.
Now, I’m not calling for footballers to have a moral code, or be role models for children, but like every other profession, there has to be some level of accountability and respect for the economic status of the world. We are all happy for bankers to take a pay cut, why not footballers? At the end of the day, they are people playing a game. A game that was once played because it was fun and had a sense of team passion about it, not a business transaction where the only people forgotten are the fans.
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True dat! No one deserves to make that amount of money - unless they have built there own business. I guess it could be argued that the player becomes a business - or brand - but still is far from deserving of the wages dished out.
ReplyDeleteIf you were still in Aus the argument wouldn't be about money, but about off field antics!
I think the problem comes down to the amount of public interest and our obsession with sport. The players become, instead of a person who enjoys a game of footy, a role model amongst other things and it's often not a role they can fill... or should have to fill. Role models would be better found in those who do good for the planet and it's people, not a guy who kicks a footy well!
What a stupid rant... Wherever there is high demand you will find skewed economic figures... Talk to your other half and tell him not to watch the matches on T.V or wherever he watches them, then tell him to tell all of his mates to do the same - see if he doesn't get a quick slap and a word in his shell like telling him to shut up while the football's on. As long as we the fans demand to be entertained by these demi-gods on and off the pitch by sky sports and the News of the World in equal dosage then we cannot complain about how much they are paid.
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