It is a major problem. The printing industry, mine, has a slight variation in wages around the country. And once guys are qualified they get the going rate. It doesn't depend on how wealthy their employer is, they pay the same. How can there be the same variation in football. From someone playing in L2 on £500+ a week to the top Prem earners is how many thousand percent higher? But is the value, performance or skill level that far apart. Of course it isn't. Demand doesn't exceed supply. There are plenty of good players who could do the job for bigger clubs. Grant Holt is maybe not as skillful as Suarez but his goals to chance ratio is better. So surely he is a better player based on your simple logic. And playing for Liverpool I would imagine he would get even more chances. Holt wouldn't get £100K a week with us. So it is only based on the clubs ability to pay. So just because a club can afford to pay doesn't make it right for the player to ask for more.
Football Agents, have a lot to answer for they are parasites of the highest order, after all these are the guys who get the deals for players and advise them, I believe they have become too powerful and encourage greed. Deep down I most players just want to play football, but at a young age they are brainwashed by their agents. When you've known these people since you've been 16 or so and see them getting you a good deal you can't help but think they are looking out for your best interest, when in reality they are only looking out for themselves.
I didn't say that it was "right" for a player to ask for more; the word "right" doesn't come into it. I said if a player reckons he has something to offer that he thinks few others can to the same extent, and if a club takes the same view and is prepared and able to pay, that's all there is to it. If clubs are foolish enough to pay stupid amounts to players who don't in fact provide the value implicit in the contract, that's the club's fault not the player's. Whether Suarez is a better striker than Holt is neither here nor there. The fact is that Liverpool "headhunted" Suarez, not Holt, and took a view on what it was worth their while paying him to play for them. Whether they made a good business decision is another question. As far as relative skill goes, of course there are some players who are perfectly capable of playing effectively at a higher level than where they currently play; equally, the reverse is true. However, if you took a League Two team and put it in the Premier League, they would not survive. Even less so a non-league team. You say demand doesn't exceed supply: our manager thinks we need to bring in a striker at least as good as Holt and, if possible, better. How many such strikers are available, and how many clubs are/would be in the market for them?
You seem to be implying that an agent cannot be acting in the best interest of both his client and himself. Taking "best interest" narrowly to mean "getting the highest remuneration", an agent on commission who maximises his client's remuneration thereby maximises his own best interest as well?
I wonder who will be paying for this fantastic new sky contract with the Premier League that everyone is so glad about....
you know what, I often dont agree with things you say and I sometimes find your posts a little negative and defeatist. This is spot on the money though. Short term greed from all involved has put us in the position we are in today.
Its the FA's fault No direction or guidance No rules put in place No structure in place No balls or bite except those lower than themselves No fairer sharing of wealth I just do not know how they have gotten away with it unscathed for so long. People will happily berate UEFA and FIFA, our lot have been totally pathetic for the last 35 years and nobody musters the slightest discontent. Makes my blood boil, its just a self appointed government which needs to be scrapped and replaced with something new.
Yes, I think quite a lot of them do, the bigger the deal they get the better the fee they receive. Do you remember around 2004-07 when Mourinho was at Chelsea and they practically had two teams which could challenge for the league? He operated a squad rotation system, but a lot of players who were featuring in their reserves would of comfortably featured in the first eleven of most other premiership teams. By all means I'm not saying it's wrong to have ambition, but agents must surely have an idea of the ability and the potential of the players they have on their books.
Yes it's a problem.......he's played 10 games not all of them full 90mins. Did you ever get offered a massive mind blowing pay rise after your first 10 weeks at work? I guess not. In no other industry I can think of would this happen, it's obscene, irresponsible, un-necessary and blackmail. Will it bring added value to the club? As I understand it Liverpool sell out everyweek, so no more fans can get in to see him, the only way they could watch him play is on SKY............. here endeth my argument!
Playing Devil's advocate (and I completely agree with you btw), you could argue that the impact Sterling makes on the teams performance could have a significant impact on the final finishing position. Say they give him £50k a week, an increase of £45k, that's £2.34 million a year increase. That keeps him happy and his performances continue to impress, and he progresses as a player. I'm sure I read somewhere that each PL place is worth £750k, so Sterling's performances only have to contribute towards a finish 4 places higher in the league (never mind reaching Europe), and they've made their money back for that season. When you factor in the investment they've already made in him, and his potential to attract a £10m+ transfer fee, and suddenly the crazy world of football has justified his wage increase.
The "crazy world of football" is no crazier than the world of popular music and entertainment where equally staggering sums are paid. All this is actually sustained by who? Yes, us, the people who buy the stuff on which it is all based, in vast quantities, be it music tracks or whatever is sold to us by the advertising, merchandising etc. etc. on which mass marketing depends. The Liverpool fans who demand success at the highest level for LFC are the ones who put the pressure on the owners and management to build the strongest team and challenge for trophies and championships. Other people, including agents, climb on the bandwagon, but the reality is that it all depends in the end on you and me wanting the product(s). If we all decided we'd rather live in a monastery with no possessions and only our own thoughts and voices and a prayer book for "entertainment", this "crazy world" would collapse. But I don't see people applying in vast numbers to enter monasteries.
