In the case of Stephen Ireland, Yes. But in the case of the most sensible footballers, have their weekly wages spiraled out of control?
In general, money in football has gone a little crazy.
After each transfer window closes, the main topic of discussion centers not so much on who went where, but for how much. Fernando Torres cost Chelsea £50m and Liverpool £35m for Andy Carroll as a replacement last January, but that’s not all the clubs had to fork out to get their guys.
Football has come a very long way in recent decades, especially when it comes to transfer fees, but even more so when it comes to footballers’ salaries.
Decades ago, professional footballers were not paid much better than their average compatriots, but today if a footballer earns £50,000 a week they are at the bottom of the scale.
For stars, that’s not even where most of their money comes from. Footballers such as Steven Gerrard, Wayne Rooney, Lionel Messi and many others all earn a significant portion of their income from sponsorship deals.
Many fans are offended by the amount of money paid to footballers simply for playing a match, especially given the global economic climate.
The worst is when a player signs a mega contract and doesn’t keep it.
For example, Joe Cole gets £90,000 per week from Liverpool and Chelsea get £90,000 per week. would have paying Torres around £200,000 a week. Cole scored three goals in his inaugural (and I only pray) season with the Reds, while Torres has scored just once since his January move to Stamford Bridge.
Even when players…Cristiano RonaldoCarlos Tevez, Messi to name a few, deliver the goods in large quantities, their mega-salaries are still a little hard to digest.
So this begs the question: are footballers paid too much?
Personally, I would say it really doesn’t affect us. Footballers are paid by their extremely wealthy owners, who make their money from team sponsorship, television contracts, merchandise sales and, to a lesser extent, ticket sales.
It’s the owners’ money and therefore their prerogative to spend it as they see fit. Additionally, sports franchises stimulate the economy like few others do.
Unfortunately, fans cannot choose who the club signs or for how much. Most of the time we just have to deal with it.
The most unpleasant part comes when the player acts like football is his job and forgets how lucky he is. Wayne Rooney (to take a recent example) claimed last October that Manchester United were not ambitious enough, but two days later he signed a five-year contract with the Red Devils. paid him more than £200,000 a week, including incentives.
It’s crazy how quickly you can change your mind. Whether or not Rooney was actually sincere (in which case, he’s dumber than people thought) or whether this was a ploy to make more money, Rooney came across as arrogant and as if he was thinking that he was bigger than the club and the game.
He was already one of the highest paid footballers, and he wanted even more?
There’s no way the Glazer family (United’s owners) doesn’t know how much Rooney is worth to the club, and they know how the sports world works since they also own the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He must not have had too brutal an affair.
There’s your credibility, Wazza.
But footballers today have become much more than just footballers. They became celebrities, and because of this, many of them saw their personal lives make the headlines in tabloid newspapers. And it’s not just because of the media pressure they face.
Many of them are harassed by supporters, opponents and their own, week after week. Life can be difficult sometimes.
But they have very few worries in their lives, and it’s not like the tabloids had to look for lurid stories or photos of these guys. The media has been doing this for years. They know what they’re getting into.
And as fans, I think we have the right to express our opinions. It’s part of the game.
As fans, it is annoying and sometimes sickening to see the way some footballers (or their WAGs) spend their salaries. Buying the gaudiest outfits and accessories and decorating their many luxury cars and extravagant homes just to show off how much money they have.
But it’s just one of those things we can’t control.
Sports franchises make money like few others, so all that money has to go somewhere. Now if ticket prices increased every year, I would have a bigger problem with player salaries.
Both Liverpool and Arsenal have announced an increase in ticket prices for next season, but in line with national tax increases and not by a huge amount, and for Arsenal it is the first time in years that they have increased tickets. price. Liverpool have also done themselves a favor by lowering the price of children’s tickets.
Many fans are not happy with the increase in tickets, even if it is minimal, but if the money helps improve the team, that is, buy and pay players, is is this a bad thing?
Money has become a very important part of football in recent years, but for the most part, players have earned their wages through their performances on the pitch.
As long as they play with heart and realize how lucky they are to live their dreams every day, I don’t mind their salary.
Except the aforementioned case of Stephen Ireland. Anyone who puts hot pink wheels on a Range Rover clearly doesn’t deserve it.
