Footballer's Wages

[Napoleon Wilson]

Im sure we are all well aware of some of the crazy wages Premiership footballers are earning these days. Since the Billionaire owners of Man City have moved in players have been flocking there in there droves on reported "silly money". When Ya Ya Toure signed from Barcelona the press reported his weekly wage packet was the "200,000+" bracket, i wonder if his agent negotiated a signing on fee too or what his percentage of that deal would have been?

 

Man City are not the only culprits. Earlier on in the season we had the "Wayne Rooney Saga". After a week of will he wont he stay, he finally signs a new 5 year deal on vastly improved terms. This from the man who once proudly unvieled his "Once a blue always, a blue" shortly before leaving Everton.

 

It is reported that for 2010/11 that "The Prime Minister has announced that he will be taking a salary of ?142,500" thats a yearly basic salary. Now it strikes me as madness when a man thats job it its to run our country is earning in a year what John Terry is in a week. And what if he's injured? It just does not make sense to me.

 

I had a discussion with a local SMP about all of this (he probobly thought i was a bit of a mentalist) and he asked me what i would do about this issue. I said "Simple, i want a ten grand wage cap. I defy anyone to say that they could not live off of TEN THOUSAND POUNDS A WEEK". He disagreed and said that would be basically communisim making everyone have the same wage.

 

Anyhow off on a bit of a rant. Please discuss your thoughts

[Mad Dog Frazer]

if you were going to cap it then you'd have to say 100 grand

 

i wouldve hated to have been a top player years ago making a pittance compared to todays player. 20 years ago if you were a top player you'd have bought a few pubs to keep you going once you retired. now a player can make in a couple of years and be set for life.

 

ridic

[IMA MAROON]

What about musicians making millions selling records?

 

What about bankers?

 

Why the big deal when footballers make money?

[Mr Brightside]

The only restraint I would put on wages is to link it with clubs turnover. Say a club would need to have an overall wage budget of 60% of turnover, other than that players should be able to earn what they can.

[Hansel]

Even if a wage cap was introduced, bigger clubs would still give players a huge win bonus. They may also start giving sneaky back handers, to persuade top stars to stay. The whole thing would be open to corruption.

 

I agree with the OP that it is ridiculous that players can earn so much. After one big money move, there is not much motivation for them to progress in their career.

 

But what can be done?

[Tazio]

The only restraint I would put on wages is to link it with clubs turnover. Say a club would need to have an overall wage budget of 60% of turnover, other than that players should be able to earn what they can.

 

The problem with that is that the rich clubs are guaranteed the best players. And in the case of the premiership where most games sell out the bigger your stadium the bigger your turnover.

[Mr Brightside]

Yeah that was my point, it would allow clubs to grow organically play well get better crowds get more money.

 

Avoid a Portsmouth, Leeds (who are a massive club), Gretna, Livingston etc situation.

[Ben Dover]

What about Michel Platini's guidelines for clubs competing in European comps. I don't know the fine detail but

he's trying to make teams pay wages that equate to a % of what the club earns............not how much they can borrow?

If that is ever successful then it would be a logical to see it used at league level all round Europe.

[reaths17]

What about Michel Platini's guidelines for clubs competing in European comps. I don't know the fine detail but

he's trying to make teams pay wages that equate to a % of what the club earns............not how much they can borrow?

If that is ever successful then it would be a logical to see it used at league level all round Europe.

 

 

the trouble with that is, its elitist and would keep all the big clubs with big incomes at the top when what we need is more competition.

 

the issue of the weekly wage with some players is that english football is raking in that vast amount of money and its the players that are the comodity. you would have to cap how much TV companies were allowed to offer, how much advertisers were allowed to offer etc. it would get complicated and messy. on the upside the cost of watching a game would come down, live or on the box, i could right an essay 10k words long on this subject.

 

 

[Heartbeat]

Im sure we are all well aware of some of the crazy wages Premiership footballers are earning these days. Since the Billionaire owners of Man City have moved in players have been flocking there in there droves on reported "silly money". When Ya Ya Toure signed from Barcelona the press reported his weekly wage packet was the "200,000+" bracket, i wonder if his agent negotiated a signing on fee too or what his percentage of that deal would have been?

 

Man City are not the only culprits. Earlier on in the season we had the "Wayne Rooney Saga". After a week of will he wont he stay, he finally signs a new 5 year deal on vastly improved terms. This from the man who once proudly unvieled his "Once a blue always, a blue" shortly before leaving Everton.

 

It is reported that for 2010/11 that "The Prime Minister has announced that he will be taking a salary of ?142,500" thats a yearly basic salary. Now it strikes me as madness when a man thats job it its to run our country is earning in a year what John Terry is in a week. And what if he's injured? It just does not make sense to me.

 

I had a discussion with a local SMP about all of this (he probobly thought i was a bit of a mentalist) and he asked me what i would do about this issue. I said "Simple, i want a ten grand wage cap. I defy anyone to say that they could not live off of TEN THOUSAND POUNDS A WEEK". He disagreed and said that would be basically communisim making everyone have the same wage.

 

Anyhow off on a bit of a rant. Please discuss your thoughts

 

 

Nick Clegg would probably take over until he gets better

[Ben Dover]

the trouble with that is, its elitist and would keep all the big clubs with big incomes at the top when what we need is more competition.

 

the issue of the weekly wage with some players is that english football is raking in that vast amount of money and its the players that are the comodity. you would have to cap how much TV companies were allowed to offer, how much advertisers were allowed to offer etc. it would get complicated and messy. on the upside the cost of watching a game would come down, live or on the box, i could right an essay 10k words long on this subject.

 

 

 

Ok it would prevent small clubs perhaps speculating to accumulate which maybe looks a tad unfair, but look what those big spending days did to us when we failed to get a foothold on that 'next level' ?

Portsmouth and Dundee basically didn't pay their credit card bills and now it has come back to haunt them

At least that cap would perhaps protect teams from themselves !

Of course there will always be a food chain in the game, and teams that command large supports with that greater income

will have a better chance of buying better players..........which generates bigger crowds / TV interest and more cash to re-invest.

It's a start though ?

[reaths17]

Ok it would prevent small clubs perhaps speculating to accumulate which maybe looks a tad unfair, but look what those big spending days did to us when we failed to get a foothold on that 'next level' ?

Portsmouth and Dundee basically didn't pay their credit card bills and now it has come back to haunt them

At least that cap would perhaps protect teams from themselves !

Of course there will always be a food chain in the game, and teams that command large supports with that greater income

will have a better chance of buying better players..........which generates bigger crowds / TV interest and more cash to re-invest.

It's a start though ?

 

 

 

the champ league is already boring, same teams playing each other every year, i hardly watch a game now. if they put that expenditure v's income in place, its only a short step to the top clubs in europe breaking away to form a seperate elite championship, every league in europe now, has 2,3 teams always competing for the titles and no other clubs in the leagues have a hope in hell of catching them. only in germany have they managed to keep their league competetive and attendances there are up.

 

its a gravy train in football and big buisness is chasing it without the slightest consideration for the jolly old fan.

 

 

[Napoleon Wilson]

What about musicians making millions selling records?

 

What about bankers?

 

Why the big deal when footballers make money?

 

You raise a good point about musicians, however it makes no difference to me if a label is able to offer more money than another in order to sign up a group or artist. My point is that with money being the pivitol point of football these days, players coming to our club have it in the back of there minds to use the opportuninty as a stepping stone to the big money premiership clubs. Money is killing the Scottish game. I have little sympathy for the "plight" of the old firm, however it raises eyebrows when the are struggling to compete for the signature of a player against the likes of Hull Fc.

[portobellojambo1]

At the moment, as has always been the case in football, the bigger clubs pay the bigger wages, no problem with that. however, the salaries football players (not only football players mind you, the salaries top movie stars and top end musicians earn, for example, are also ridiculous and partly funded by the public, although the public don't seem to mind contributing to such people earning multi millions of pounds a year, yet object to a top end banker being paid a bonus of a couple of hundred thousand, which has always surprised me) are simply ridiculous for the number of hours work they put in per week. And this idea that it is a short career is nothing short of bullshit. Some football players earn more in 6 months than a much harder working man/woman can earn working from age 16 to age 65, and they don't die when they stop playing, they have a further span of 30 odd years to rejoin the real world and continue earning.

 

These ideas that what they spend must be within a %age of what the club turn over make sense to me. It would also help balance out and as a result make both the EPL and SPL more competitive if what was classed as turnover was income generated by the club, and didn't include money given to them by the likes of TV companies (Sky/ESPN in the case of England and Scotland).

 

Yes, players would be earning less, but by earning less they might then understand how the rest of the world operates, and if all clubs were paying less, and in some cases a lot less, players would then be less likely to join a club based on what they could earn and more likely to join because they genuinely want to play for that specific club.