Football Greed - 100m For Gareth Bale...

OldPerculier

OldPerculier

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Lincoln (UK)
So what do you think...

For me personally I think it is outrageous, I stopped following football around ten years back due to all the greed involved and the attitude of some the players that think the world owes them a living. I have nothing against people earning a grand old wage packet, but for me, in todays world its rare I see someone playing from the heart, and for the badge on their shirt. I do realise that it is not just the players, the middle agents and greedy clubs take their share too. Please do not get me wrong, I'm not saying he is not a good player, but 100 million... the price of a new hospital wing....
 
It's absolutely crazy. Thing is, though, these big clubs wouldn't pay this kind of money unless they thought it was worth it. The money from the Sky deal is crazy, but it's presumably funded by enough people who want to sit at home watching the product.
 
Celtic67 said:
It's absolutely crazy. Thing is, though, these big clubs wouldn't pay this kind of money unless they thought it was worth it. The money from the Sky deal is crazy, but it's presumably funded by enough people who want to sit at home watching the product.
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It's mind boggling the amount of money in football and, in an age of so-called austerity, quite bewildering really. It's an age when a 20 year old fottballer is seen to be justified in not asking for a salary over £100K a week as if he is making a sacrifice.

It'll collpse one day but until that day comes the money invloved will spiral and spiral and spiral....
 
It's simply outrageous and can never be truly justified surely?!

In the sport I follow, Rugby League, players put their bodies on the line week in, week out and play on through the pain barrier with broken wrists, ruptured testicles (Paul Wood in the Grand Final), damaged knee ligaments etc. etc. for fear of letting their team-mates and the fans down.

For all of this they would be lucky to earn around £100k PER YEAR, let alone per week.
 
Gents lets not forget its become a boutique sport with executive boxes serving champagne, branded pies and golf course pitches. As everything around football gets richer (£50/60 per ticket) so does the game and its staff.... Business is business. Oh and then you have to protect your property, cotton wool treatment.
 
Welcome to a free market economy!

It's no different in the US where baseball, basketball and American footballers earn millions each year.

The days of football being a working mans sport are long gone.
 
It isn't crazy and tbh the player greed argument is a little tired if not naive...the top tier clubs are global businesses with worldwide fan bases attracting huge sponsorship while generating many many hundreds of millions of dollars.

It simply has everything to do with how many folks chose to pay and watch either live or through their TV subs...Utd and Chelsea for example will undertake US tours during the summer and hundreds of thousands will be paying to see them play and if that were the case for other sports their players could also command stratospheric salaries and frankly deservedly so.
 
I love football and I have started to go less and less due to ticket prices.

If people are willing though to pay the price for tickets and sky subscriptions then why shouldn't the best players get a good slice? If they didn't get it the club owners would just take it.

You would like to think that everyone was paid a little less and the price to watch could drop, but clearly people are happy to pay to we are stuck with it.
 
antdad said:
It isn't crazy and tbh the player greed argument is a little tired if not naive...the top tier clubs are global businesses with worldwide fan bases attracting huge sponsorship while generating many many hundreds of millions of dollars.

It simply has everything to do with how many folks chose to pay and watch either live or through their TV subs...Utd and Chelsea for example will undertake US tours during the summer and hundreds of thousands will be paying to see them play and if that were the case for other sports their players could also command stratospheric salaries and frankly deservedly so.
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I think this argument falls down a little in that only a handful of clubs throughout Europe are of any size in terms of total revenue generated. The remainder are very small businesses.

Even the major clubs cannot survive without backers - football does not have a viable business plan.

Wage costs are totally out of proportion to revenue and, in the UK at least, supported by the huge investment by the likes of Sky and BT. If you subscribe to Sky sport - whether you are interested in football or not, you are helping to pay the players. Don't forget as well that the subscrition rates for pubs and clubs are astranomical - so you pay through the price of a pint as well.
 
antdad said:
It isn't crazy and tbh the player greed argument is a little tired if not naive...the top tier clubs are global businesses with worldwide fan bases attracting huge sponsorship while generating many many hundreds of millions of dollars.

It simply has everything to do with how many folks chose to pay and watch either live or through their TV subs...Utd and Chelsea for example will undertake US tours during the summer and hundreds of thousands will be paying to see them play and if that were the case for other sports their players could also command stratospheric salaries and frankly deservedly so.
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I wasn't arguing that the players are being greedy, but was suggesting that when a 20 year old believes he is making a sacrifice by not asking for £100k a week then we really do know that the whole bloated shabang is out of control. I don't blame the players one iota, but they should understand and appreciate just how much money they are pocketing in relation to the rest of the population. The average household income in the UK is under £40k per year. For the most part I do not begrudge the players the money. They are only trying to secure their slice of an extremely well filled pie.
 
In the final analysis it's you and I who are paying the bloated salaries of the players, managers and all involved in professional sports, not to mention lining the pockets of rapacious owners. Whether you buy a ticket or not, the costs are passed on to us by the sponsors through the prices of their goods and services. For this reason I have not attended or watched a professional sporting match in over 20 years. And yes, I do resent the attitude of players; it's egregious and insulting. It has to end somewhere, but this will only happen if we mere mortals boycott and disrupt the gravy train. Unfortunately, the opiate of bread and circuses is much too strong for the majority of the great unwashed, so it won't happen. I can only dream and rant in the meantime.
 
As I type this I'm watching The Class of 92. That was when football was different. I grew up watching football in this era, watching lads who wanted to play football because they loved the game, the money was secondary.

I don't think it will ever return to those ways. Money has ruined football.
 
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