Just sren this on BBC Sport..... Former West Ham team-mates Hitzlsperger and Upson are both free agents Fewer than a quarter of players whose contracts ended this summer have found new clubs, BBC Sport has learned. The Professional Footballers' Association website lists 338 senior and 200 youth team players as being available, compared to more than 700 at the start of the summer. Internationals like Thomas Hitzlsperger and Matthew Upson are among those still without a club. And top agent Barry Silkman said many players were in for "a big shock". He added: "It's proving very difficult this summer. There's not much money out there at all. "There are some very, very good players out there who still don't have anything lined up - it's unbelievable." Continue reading the main story Lots of players are going to have to take what's there. There's no money about. When you look at Spurs, nobody has arrived. That tells you everything" Barry Silkman Agent Silkman highlights Germany midfielder Hitzlsperger as an example. The 29-year-old is without a club after his West Ham contract expired this summer. Silkman, who works with Hitzlsperger's lawyer, claims the German was "offered a deal by Sunderland at the start of July, maybe a bit before that ... (but) his lawyer said 'I think we will get a better deal'. "Now he will find a club, but nowhere near the terms Sunderland offered, not even within 30% or 35% of the wages they were offering." It seems Hitzlsperger is not alone. Silkman cites the example of Upson: "When you look at him, an England international, without a club, it makes you realise that things are tough. "Lots of players are going to have to take what's there. There's no money about. When you look at Spurs, nobody has arrived. That tells you everything." YOU CAN GET THEM FOR FREE XI Continue reading the main story GK: Richard Kingson RB: Stuart Parnaby LB: Jlloyd Samuel CB: Matthew Upson CB: Sol Campbell MD: Jason Koumas MD: Boudewijn Zenden MD: Thomas Hitzlsperger CF: James McFadden CF: Marcus Bent CF: John Carew But why are conditions so tough? Silkman thinks the rule limiting Premier League squads to 25 - a regulation introduced at the start of the 2010-11 campaign - is still having an impact. Fellow agent Rachel Anderson agrees: "Clubs are reducing the size of their squads and are increasingly looking for home-grown players. They want English and British players - as encouraged by Fifa - but many of them are not tried and tested so it's often a false economy." However, she says some household names have unrealistic demands: "Players with Premier League and Championship experience will often still be available because they have astronomical wages. "Clubs would snap them up if they were available for £20k per week. But it's the £40k, £60k, £80k players who will remain on the list. "They obviously don't want to take a drop in salary but they will do as the days get shorter. At the end of the day, 99% of players in my experience just want to play." That dose of reality may be something one of her big-name clients - whose identity she will not reveal - will be forced to accept. Anderson described him as being "out-of-favour at his Premier League club where he is on £4m a year". Newcastle released former England international Campbell this summer More deals are likely to go through over the next few weeks, not least because of the way players' contracts work. Simon Barker, a senior executive at the PFA, said that while contracts typically expire on 30 June, players are entitled to an extra month's severance pay unless they sign for a new club by the end of July. Former Wales and Blackburn midfielder Robbie Savage told 5 live: "If I didn't sign for another club, even though I was retiring, I was entitled to another payment which I've just received on 29 July. "That's why we see free transfers waiting until 1 August to sign for other clubs. "I think it's great! I put on Twitter, jokingly, that this was my last ever pay packet and that I was going to go out and buy a Lamborghini!" But Barker, a combative midfielder who played in the top flight for QPR at the dawn of the Premier League, insists life is tough for many of his members. "There might have been a slight increase this year in the number of out-of-contract players," he said. "It's a very unnerving time being out-of-contract and not being sure if there is a club out there for you."
Looks like we we did try to sign the fella but greed done him out of a decent deal! Would any one on here take McFadden? Soz to post a thread straight after but posting on a phone is a pain in the arse!!
The fact that the likes of Robbie Savage (****ing useless footballer and **** stain of a bloke) can make himself a millionaire from the game and then joke about buying a flash motor with his last pay packet, whilst the majority of the country struggle to come to terms with the harshness of the world economy, tells you why football is heading for the knackers yard. Its time to tell these greedy self indulgent ****ers to piss off. They have milked the game dry over the past 10 to 15 years and now the money has run out. Save for the likes of Man City, clubs up and down the country are looking to reduce costs not increase. The next generation of footballer will not earn the same obscene amounts of money again. As a footnote, those players on the free list without a club wont exactly be going to sign on will they. Every one of them are multi millionaires in their own right. Their next contracts will let us all see if they are money grabbers or footballers. They dont need £80k per week but if they would rather not play than take say £40k per week, hardly subsistence earnings by the way, to find a club, it will tell you what a greedy twat that player really is. Players have knackered football and it will be footballers of the future that will have to pick up the bill.
I agree Cest. Even a below average player can earn in a week what I do in a year! The Man city's of this world don't help matters by giving large wages to players that prob won't even make their bench. Got to be dome kind of a salary cap implemented before the bubble bursts & British football implodes....mind you at least we will get to see the players for free if it does, playing down the local park with their (soon to be sold) Lambo's for goal posts!!
Totally agree. It's not doing players or other clubs any favours when City etc offer astronomical wages, even in football terms, to average players. Bridge, Santa Cruz, Wright-Phillips and Bellamy for example are going to need to lower their wages massively, or just not play. I know we've been linked with Bellamy and put off by his wages. Why? Surely Craig knows they are ridiculous and no club he's going to join will pay that. Offer him 40k and see what happens. As for Hitz, if he didnt want to join, he doesn't have to. If he's still free at the end of the window offer him half what we did in July!
Is this the start of a power shift back to the clubs? I'm all for a salary cap being introduced, it would enhance the game massively and the competition would be better for it. Id be in favour of a salary bonus add on for appearances, goals etc, then the top players would be rewarded if their doing the business. If Upson would accept a similar wage to our fellow central defenders I think he'd be a cracking signing. James Mcfadden suffered a serious cruciate injury which kept him out of last season. I rate the lad, can play on the left and upfront. Give him a trial, offer him to come train with us and if he can prive his fitness give him a short term contract. Id also take Carew on a free as we are still after an additional striker.
If a player gets say 60K a week, how much does he get in his hand? I know accountants can "lose" a lot of the money, but surely a hell of a lot will be eaten up by taxes? Not sure of UK taxes now, been out of UK tax system for a long long time. I would have thought that after taxes someone on 40K would not get that much less, than someone on 60K. Or am I being deluded? In Norway there is a sliding scale, with the more you earn (taxable earnings) the higher percentage of tax. On a lighter note 40k a week....sod it I'm not taking a pay cut for anyone, will get nearly as much on the dole!
I still find statements like " hes not that well paid really at his current club, he's only on 30,000 PER WEEK" totally mindboggling!!!!!!!! Thats 1.5m per year for an average joe bloggs footballer, kicking a bloody football about for 90 mins a week and they say not that well paid? FFS the world is mental at times.
Great point Cest. No footballer wants to play for the love of the game now its all about the money. Yes everyone likes to make money but the greedy twats make more in a week then most people do in a year. Thats why im happy we will not pay over the odds in terms of wages we have our limit at that is it. Im not sure what our limit is 40-50k a week but if you cant live on that then **** off Just look at Leeds & Portsmouth both got ****ed by paying more than they could afford.
I just don't understand why the need is there for the pay. I won't slate players for it, to be honest, as it's the clubs that made this happen. At what point did it become a need for our clubs to pay such money for people to live out their dream? Any one of us on this board would gladly play for SAFC if it paid enough to scrape and existence and stay alive, football is a job that shouldn't need to pay such incredulous sums, it's not as if they are gonna say '**** that, £10k a week, i'm off to work in a bank...' I earned last year approximately a weeks wage for a half decent player, i'm not gonna put a number on that, but you'll know ballpark. I lived in a beautiful, spacious apartment in the Baltic in Newcastle, and run 2 nice cars. We had enough money to go out, eat out, buy new clothes whenever we wanted and had all the standard home comforts like sky, hd tv etc that are commonplace. How the **** can someone decline a contract offering them enough money to do that in less than 2 weeks? For playing a game they surely love and if they hadn't made it to pro would probably be playing for free on weekends, and talking about with their marras in the pub? How can clubs even contemplate paying them this amount, for the same reasons? I've heard things like 'they only have a short career and need to maximise earnings', that's bollocks, they are set up for LIFE in a year, comfortably. A wage cap of say 30k a week still makes a footballer a multi millionaire, and they should be allowed a percentage of their image rights, as unquestionably some players 'make' more money for the parent club. The clubs have created the monster, and only a completely uniform agreement to change from ALL the major clubs could change it, this will never happen. Daft thing is, with a wage cap, the best players would still want to play for the bigger clubs, so they'd be no worse off, what you would see is a few more local lads in each team, not chasing money elsewhere, and surely that again would be a good thing? The new financial rules may be the one thing Platini has nailed in terms of what the game needs, but it's nowhere near enough, and as City have shown, the mega rich will just shuffle money around and drip feed it into the club through a loophole to cover their arses. EDIT** Hadn't read your post Cest, but i see your views are close to identical to mine, the clubs could take the game back anytime they wanted. The word is 'wanted'.
Find this all a bit strange really,as some are on about players wages, and wrote constantly about signing a certain french winger, who would have cost a fortune. None of them are worth this kind of money, not just the flavour of the month, double standards really.
