Excellent article as always from Martin Samuel
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/ar...Premier-League-play-different-rules-else.html
Jerry Seinfeld earned roughly £175million making the television show that carried his name, and that was just for the ninth series, in 2004. The following year, NBC offered him a raise – a basic £3.2m per episode, which he turned down. At approaching £540m his estimated personal wealth makes him the richest actor in the world. Not that he doesn’t use his money for good. According to one report from 2013, he has a fleet of 46 Porsches.
And nobody bats an eyelid.
So it’s football. Only football. Always football. Football gets rich and out they all come. Football gets rich and the market is suddenly obscene. Seinfeld’s show sold premium rate commercial slots for NBC so was worth every cent – but if Wayne Rooney does that for Rupert Murdoch via Sky and Manchester United, it’s a national scandal. Football gets rich and the politicians, the pontificators, sense an opportunity in election year. Think of the fans, the grass roots, the England team. And what about the living wage? Dear God, won’t they think of the living wage? So, yes, let’s do just that
On November 6 last year, between the hours of 3.10pm and 4.58pm, parliament debated the living wage. Photographs of the House from that period show the intense interest. In one image, as many as 15 MP’s can be seen present, but there must have been a few more because Hansard registers that 17 spoke.
Vince Cable, quoted in the Evening Standard on Wednesday, condemning the practices of football clubs? No. Sadiq Khan, shadow London minister, who referred to the Premier League’s attitude as disgraceful? Sadly mute. Chris Heaton-Harris, who called on clubs to pay the living wage? Must have lost his voice.
Frank Field, who announced that he had written to all 20 Premier League clubs, suggesting they share the success by paying the living wage to staff? Not so vexed three months ago, it seems.
With the House so deserted one imagines anyone who wanted a say, was heard. So here is the full list of those who cared about the living wage before there was a headline in it. Conservative: Chris White, Guy Opperman, Guto Bebb, Richard Fuller, Robert Jenrick, Nick Boles. Labour: Mark Lazarowicz, Jim Cunningham, Albert Owen, William Bain, Susan Elan Jones, Stephen Timms, Jack Dromey, Jeremy Corbyn, David Lammy. Scottish National Party: Pete Wishart. Plaid Cymru: Hywel Williams. Not a peep from the Liberal Democrats, you will note, despite Cable’s bold stance.
The House heard that 22 per cent of people in the United Kingdom exist below the living wage – which is different, and higher, than the minimum wage. In Wales that figure rises to 24 per cent, in Northern Ireland 27 per cent, in the north-east, Yorkshire and Humber 25 per cent, in the East Midlands 24 per cent, the south east 18 per cent and London 17 per cent.
So either a lot of people are employed by Premier League football clubs – particularly in Northern Ireland, where there aren’t any, and Wales where there is one – or there are a whole lot of other companies that are not doing right by the staff. And the only difference between football’s downtrodden and the lowest paid cleaners at, say, a hotel, is that nobody ever got a page in the Standard advocating worker’s rights at a two-star in Leicester.
The parliamentary debate ended with this appraisal from White, Conservative MP for Warwick and Leamington: 'We have heard evidence of how important and good the living wage is for individuals, businesses and society. I think we all realise that we need to go further. It is important to remind ourselves that this is not just about living wage week; we need to be discussing and thinking about the living wage all year round.'
Hansard recorded that the question put was agreed to. 'Resolved, that this House has considered promotion of the living wage.' And that’s all they did. Considered it. Considered the promotion of it. Decided it was for life, not just for Christmas. And pottered off to their homes, all 17 of them.
So let’s not pretend the living wage is a fight that was at the forefront of parliamentary thinking until Burnley hit the jackpot. Some are advocating parliament getting involved if football does not determine to act more fairly, but that would place sports minister Helen Grant in charge of governance, when her £1,666.67 monthly charge for a London residence suggests it is not possible to commute to the capital from Reigate on one of 58 daily trains. So no thanks.
Of course, football clubs should pay the living wage. Chelsea do it, so should they all. That’s not the point. The living wage is merely the latest stick with which to beat a successful industry. Football works. Football is creating more working-class millionaires, greater social mobility than just about any business in Britain. In a world of cut, cut, cut, football can afford to spend, spend, spend. So it is hated, resented, for its success. For doing what politicians can’t and making the recession work.