Absolutely. Also when we talk about scandals, how about Lucas, Agger, Carragher, Aurelio, Kuyt etc etc who are not letting themselves down but who limit the number of times they go out, do not drink or smoke, make public appearances for charity, and basically for their careers have very little life outside of football. Still a great life, but there is much dedication there.
I read recently that Samir Nasri rejected a contract offer from Arsenal that was worth £90,000 per week. He is holding out for £120,000 per week. No, footballers don't get paid too much at all. What job WOULDN'T you do for £90,000 a YEAR!?
I know completely what footballers sacrifice when they turn pro, for 15-20 years of their life they have to abide by a set of rules. They have to move around a lot, they run the risk of moving to a completely different country in a moment's notice and there's no escaping it - you can't just quit when things get rough. Although.... Say the average footballer gets 50k a week, 200k a month - 2.4mil a year, for playing a game that you enjoy playing - turning up to training a few hours a day is well worth the sacrifices. There's also the advertising and endorsement money they get etc.. it's a hell of a lot of money. A mate of mine decided in Year 11 he wanted to become a doctor, so he spent 10 hours a day revising, the rest was exercising and doing volunteer work to build his CV up. He did this for 2 years, came round to his interviews and ended up with 1 offer of AAA. He spent the next year revising like mad, spending most of his extra time just revising - he barely had a life. He just got his 3 A's, and went to do medicine - 5 year course, where he worked his ass off (supposedly, although I only really ever saw him during the evening) and then when he'd finished his course, he had to do 2 years in a hospital working ridiculous hours. He was 25 before he'd even begun to work properly in what he wanted to do, and he did it because he wanted to help people. He's on 90k a year now, working in a hospital in day and night shifts with a young child. Tell me that a footballer deserves to be paid more in 2 weeks than he does in a year.
One where I could get £120,000 or I could get a career-ending injury so I can't even earn what you get just for sweeping up burger wrappers. If it offends you so much throw out all your CDs and DVDs because they're all made by overpaid people who don't work nearly as hard as footballers. Some musicians write a song in ten minutes and make enough from it to retire.
Ze Liverbird - SPOT ON. There are so many noble jobs that have to go on strike to get an extra few quid a year, its disgusting. I work in sales and have worked with some people that have been earning incredible amounts of money for working 9-5 monday to friday, knocking off early most fridays for a long weekend and earning more than surgeons. No qualifications required, its just not right AT ALL
That's got nothing to do with footballers. I'll never be on £90k a year so why should your mate? Surely my envy should be enough to prevent him earning that much? Some people in the world walk 25 miles just to get their water. Who the **** are we to moan that we're underpaid? We live in the capitalist west and we've all got it relatively cushy. If nurses don't get paid enough who's fault is that? The type of people who whine that they can't get on holiday because of the "bloody unions", the type who say, "I work 70 hours a week and I'm not in a union!" Well, duh. Like Denis Leary said, "Life's tough, get a helmet."
Ze Liverbird Excellent post. The OP makes a good argument too- it almost convinced me, but I'm afraid I don't think anyone deserves millions per year for playing football. The argument that pop stars, actors or bankers(!) etc., have similar incomes is irrelevant- you can't justify something that is wrong by pointing out that others do it. The bigger question about the merits, or lack of, of the free market economy is a bigger argument. The role model issue is a bit different. I don't think that footballers can be expected to be role models, this is forced on them a bit by people eager to pull them apart at every opportunity. Asking Wayne not to swear is liking putting a tiger in a cage with a lamb and asking it not to have a nibble. Having said all of that I agree that if it was offered to me I'd take it.
I don't think it would be to difficult to introduce a rule whereby all league clubs had the requirement to offer training to the players. Afterall most job's offer some sort of training or professional development, not all players would take up the offer but it would definately increase the number of good coaches in the system. Saying that you would rather the player's get the money than the fat cat buisnessmen is totally misguided as they just pass the cost on to us in ticket/shirt prices.The fat cat's will always make there cut in whatever guise they can. What i meant bt the community is the fans of football afterall if it wasn't for us then there would be no tv deals, advertising deals and no money. As for the lottery playing comment, Buying a ticket probably give's more money to sport development in the uk than buying a season ticket. Just to clarify I'm not saying that all football players are greedy, self obsessed good for nothings as alot of them do good work, many examples have been stated in previous posts, however you could probably say the same about Bankers.
Why would you want to take away the pay of someone you know deserves it? Those people who walk 25 miles to the nearest water, obviously deserve more than they're getting - but you can't base all incomes on them. My point is - he worked damn hard for that 90k a year, not many people work as hard as that. I decided I didn't want to go into Medicine simply because I'm too lazy. Yet people claim they think doctors are paid too much? They don't have a clue to what goes into it; football on the other hand is very public and we know what they do, and how little (relatively) they have to work for their pay. It's the government's fault for nurses who don't get paid enough, NHS funds get blown on clowns who don't need treatment and superficial injuries supplied by the NHS but have no medical significance at all. It is the people that stopped and questioned authority that changed this country for the better, when this stops happening - 1984 takes over.
You are also forgetting things like job satisfaction, the fact that those sales guys and footballers pay generous (contentious!) pensions to those doctors and the fact a doctor has a job for life. Also supply and demand as someone mentioned is important. The fact of the matter is it is harder to find a top class footballer than it is to find a doctor, and so fees demanded will for footballers will always be higher. A top footballer needs athleticism (both natural and cultivated), a footballing brain, touch, drive etc whereas many Doctors simply need to apply knowledge. Doctors are less competitively motivated- they have targets but do not have to 'beat' other doctors in order to ensure their income, and a competitive industry results in competitive wages for footballers. Then there's the fact a doctor does not have thousands of people booing or cheering him as he works, he does not have constant pressure to be in the starting 11, a Doctor will not have 24hours to decide whether to stay and battle for his place with a new Doctor that has been brought in or move abroad with less than 24hours notice. The above may be contentious, and i'm stirring things somewhat, but in no way am i trying to play down the importance or role of our Doctors, just looking at things comparatively.
I think the point has to be that once a footballer signs that contract he's minted. even if he gets a career ending injury he's paid via insurance! I think 90k v 120k is PURELY an arguement over nasri wanting what fabregas gets or in other words ego. Once you've "made it" by going to a big club for a big fee I personally think these guys lose reality. Once they hit the big wages it becomes a bubble of nonreality in which the car you drive and the number of birds you pull ANd having as much money as the clown beside you inthe dressing room is all that matters. once you enter that reality it is like the ruo millions, do i want the full jackpot this week or will i be willing to share it... greed says i want it all. the rest of us just dream of it. I think if you go back to mr tevez who pulled the exact stunt at utd. he signed a huge contract for 200k per week for a set period. fine.. your wife knew it, her familty knew it... you PUT UP WITH IT. do i care if they can't be bothered learning english? or hate the weather or miss the mammy? who cares? as for the doctor... its called suppply and demand. sorry but doctores are dime a dozen coming in from round the world. a top footballer is rarer and bascially people pay £50 for a shirt with his name etc. 40k+ come to see him each week kick a ball about. until the surgeon sells tickets to theatre, or those halloween costumes come with famous surgeons on the back... well you get my rather flippant point. Its may not be right but it is supply and demand. Does a movie star like mad tom cruise deserve his fees? nope he's even worse than a footballer as all he's got is a face. but there you go. the point must be are the wages unsustainable? We all know that at city and chelsea they are, all we need do is look to the losses they make. If a club can afford to pay say... rooney 250k per week and make a profit at it then fine no bother.... same for us, if we can afford to may COUGH jovanovic COUGH 90k per week (50 times the doctor) then fine do so. At some clubs fans vote with thier feet and don't turn up.
Thanks for the recommendation at the start Nips! We have here the dilema between morality and reality. So before we go any further I'll fully admit to not having the answer to it. Morally, no footballer is worth the price (fees and wages) if only because if there was no professional football they would still be out kicking a ball about in the park. The reality is that we have had professional football in the Uk since the late 19th Century. So, if a footballer can be paid for displaying his skills then he also has the right to earn as much as he can. Having said that, the wages and fees paid to the top footballers nowdays appears to have lost touch with reality. However, when we look outside of the Premiership then the difference in take-home pay drops rapidly. The press will always focus upon the top players but we do have to remember that we are only talking about a few hundred players across Europe. The clubs themselves and the governing bodies (FA, UEFA and FIFA) do have a responsibility for letting the present situation come about. As this worldwide economic depression continues then the majority of European clubs now find themselves at risk due to the high wage bills that they have to fund - hence higher and higher ticket prices and more and more merchandising. In the end clubs will not be able to pay the salaries. If that is the case then players will have to accept lower wages or look for another profession. We cannot and will not go back to the 50s but there does need to be a long hard look at the financial position of our clubs and the wages that they pay. Told you I didn't have the answer - sorry!
deary me nips, are you dumb or something! well lets see. my mate is a fireman. he risks his life to save others. he's seen a child die in front of his eyes and goes through weekly near death experiences. he would have to save up for at least 3 years to be able to get what adebayor earns in a week for sitting on a bench.
It doesn't offend me in the slightest - the question was do footballers get paid too much. You might have missed that? ...Muppetfinder General? You must be the Senior Doctor there? ... Oh, footballers have insurance in case they suffer a career-ending injury... guess you missed that as well.
I hope you're not this quick off the mark with your missus, you've barely gotten it out of your pants before you just spaffed all over the keboard. I've said several times that as there was already a certain view being aired, i would debate on the opposite side of the argument. Thing is, if you don't have at least 2 sides to the issue then it isn't a debate is it Einstein? Let me spell it out: In spite of my own views, i was playing Devil's advocate in order to provoke debate and give some variety amongst the 500 Stuart Downing articles! Wiki: "The purpose of such process is typically to test the quality of the original argument and identify weaknesses in its structure, and to use such information to either improve or abandon the original, opposing position." If you are still unsure google Devil's advocate. Re: Firefighters It's difficult to get up to date statistics as these reports are often done every few years: In 2002 when the firefighters in the UK when out on strike press reports cited a figure of 35,000 front line full time firefighters There are also around 18,000 Retained (Part Time) Fire Fighters. At least 13 firefighters were killed at fires in the five years between 2003 and 2007. That compares to only one death at a fire in the preceding five year period. So that's 53k firefighters X 5 years= 265000 /13 deaths = 1 in 20,385 chance on average of being a Firefighter fatality during the period when the Fire service was lobbying the government to improve training standards as safety had worsened. I'm sure your mate does a fantastic job, but i wonder how those odds (however limited) compare to other occupations. 9 out of 10 applicants to the fire service are unsuccessful, the rate for successful top footballers is less- supply and demand. Give anyone of decent physical condition the right training and if they have the mental fortitude and courage they can become a firefighter. Doing the same with a footballer is not true. We need firefighters, we need all the other national services, part of my point for debate was that regardless of the value of a job, if there's a limited number of people skilled enough to do it then it's gonna make them serious money.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7423254.stm Decent article on how wages have grown in the period 96/97 to 06/07. IMO some footballers get paid an absolutely ridiculous salary and sooner or later these will become completely unsustainable. No argument will change my mind on this, even making £50k a week to play football is ludicrous but it's never going to change.
