Fed up of people wanting players who 'play for the badge and not for money'. Lets be realistic, 99.9% of footballers play for money. If Liverpool offered me a starting position in the team, I'd bite their hand off and play for 30k a year (not for nothing, I'd need money to live since it would replace my job!). Lets consider I'd be retiring at 35 and not 65, so 30years of wages need making up. Call it 60k a year. But hey, I'm a global superstar now playing for my local club, I'd like to enjoy myself, lets make it 100k a year. 100k a year and I'm set for life, playing for my boyhood club, enjoying my football. Getting paid to do the thing I love most and never really working a day in my life. --players crying about playing 3 times a week also annoys me. If I got 100k a week, I'd make sure I was fit enough to play every ****ing day since it's my damn job-- There are hundreds of players getting that much money PER WEEK and some players making more in a week than some people do in almost TEN YEARS. It's obcene. Even supposed boyhood fans are leeching clubs for all they can but claiming they love the club and the fans at the same time. I live in a dream world where people actually play for the badge. Lets be realistic, virtually no one does. If they did, contract talks would go along the lines of "yeah, my 20k a week is fine, sign me up for another 3 years please" instead of dragging on for 2 months trying to milk an extra 20k/30k a week. Who plays for the club in this modern game featuring money-grabbing mercenaries? Rooney wants to leave and cries at united and gets upped another 100k a week. Suddenly he loves the club and the fans love him again. Bollocks. He loves the money. Classic example. Even our beloved Gerrard is on way over 5million a year. Sure he avoided chelsea in the past, but lets be honest, if City came in and offered him 15mill a year, he'd be off. I question any play in todays game who claims they 'play for the badge' and it makes me sick. Very few players hold my respect. Money is also what I don't want to come flooding into Liverpool RE city. Look how it worked for them? I'd feel embarrased having a squad of overpaid, disloyal mercenaries like them. Random thoughts/discussion.
Yer I agree, there are not many loyal players any more. Big money is king. This is why I think using our academy to breed loyalty is so important. Welcome to the site btw
Totally agree with everything you say. I've been saying this for years. Until a wage cap is imposed on the Premier League this will continue to happen - with the likes of City and Chelsea raising the bar every year in terms of wages. Wonder how the financial fair play rules will affect these clubs?? Back to your original post, the wages that the players get these days is the main reason I no longer go to Anfield to watch them. I'm not saying others should do the same by any stretch of the imagination. When I first started going to the match it was somewhere between £1 and £1.50 to get in (that was the kids gate price in the early 80's) now it would cost me £35 - £40 to line these overpaid prima-donnas pockets. Not me I'm afraid, better things to spend my money on.
I agree. But I remember a time when it wasn't like that. Too much money has ruined certain aspects of the game. Apart from the obvious lack of loyalty, there's no consistency any more- the money fuelled merry-go-round means your team changes all the time. This then contibutes to a lack of loyalty or sense of belonging. Although I love the game, I too think it obscene that anyone gets paid millions for being able to kick a ball about when there's so much poverty elsewhere. ( Yeah, I know it's not just footballers- but don't get me started on anyone else). Their inflated wages and transfer fees then require higher ticket prices which makes it harder for people to go to games and threatens to bankrupt the clubs. Agents obviously stand to make money from their players moving about, so that contributes to the problem as well. If I were God ( I'm only a saint) I'd have all squad players on a flat rate with bonuses for playing, and further bonuses for winning etc. Maybe factor in a sliding scale increase for years of service to reward loyalty. No doubt people will tell me why this is a daft idea, but I think the current system is mad. If you're earning 90K a week, why do you want 100? Because so-and-so in your team earns that and you measure your value on what you earn, not how much of a contribution you make. And as for "tiredness". Young men at the peak of their physical fitness, with the best training and health care money can buy, can't play more than two 90 minute spells a week? I seem to remember Wenger being the first to go on about this- I suppose if you say something often enough, people start to believe it.
I absolutely agree with the OP. Take the case of Fat Joe. He went to you because (and only because) you were mug enough to pay him £90k a week, when no one else was prepared to take that kind of chance of the chubby former English wunderkind. The rest of us were proved right, and you were humiliated. Now, it appears that Joe has seen the error of his ways, and that if he really does want to play football, he's actually got to get into a team that's prepared to give him a chance, rather than sit on our bench eating pies for £90k a week. £3 million is probably a fair deal, as you've probably spent far more than that on him in wages, training, signing-on fees, etc. Harry knows the player, and is far better than Kenny at getting the best out of players with such a prodigious talent. It'll be interesting to see Joe come alive at Spurs. At, at long last, Joe can forget all that nonsense he spouted about joining the biggest team in Europe. We all knew he only said that because the money you gave him went to his head.
I'm waiting for the day football finally destroy's itself with greed. No player on god's green earth is worth more than £5k a week, if you can't live comfortable off that, then you should get an accountant to help you. It annoys me when millions are struggling, when some prima donna footballer moans £100k a week isn't enough. Try getting by as millions do on a basic salary, try skrimping and saving to get the kids new shoe's.Those pathetic England players "It's been a long season, we're tired" Try doing a 40-50 hour week in a factory, then you ladies will know what hard work is. This self important, clueless, twats live in a fantasy world. Someone needs to wake them up.
Loyalty is parochial. This hold true for family community army football team. All of these have long serving components, football clubs for the most part do not, players come and go and should a player put loyalty and loyalty to who? over what is best for their career? Carra is the epitome of Loyalty to a team, a team of the squad management staff grounds keepers ect. When you dump 10s of millions of quids into your club every season for players you are not buying loyalty that is certain
True, but I'd be gutted that the people's game had been destroyed by the money machine. Players used to travel to games with their mates, who would be in the crowd, then go for a drink with them afterwards. they were part of the community, and proud to play for their team. Now the game is becoming ever more remote from the people who provide it with it's very existence. I agree, it seems to be on a path to self destruction- everyone involved in it needs to realise it can't go on this way.
