Actually, footballers aren’t paid enough
Messi, Neymar, Ronaldo and the rest are as much household names as Beyonce, Clooney and Rowling
ootballers aren’t paid enough. ‘I beg your pardon,’ I hear you reply? My reaction too, when an arts personality, who admittedly had just received a dose of negative press coverage, told me during a dinner conversation that she believed footballers should be paid more than what they are.
Paid more, she said, because footballers are as popular as musicians, actors and models and are pursued as vigorously by the paparazzi press, but held to higher standards of morality and behaviour than those other professions.
The nature of being a top footballer — a top athlete — also demands far more sacrifice, she added. No (or moderate) drinking and partying, no smoking and the strictest of fitness regimes.
No doubt she said, countering the common argument that what footballers get paid for booting a bit of leather around a field is obscene compared to what essential public professions of teachers, nurses, policemen and binmen earn. Yet, when it comes to how globally popular their entertainment industry is, footballers are short changed compared to Hollywood stars, major musicians and television personalities. What she told me happened a good few years ago, but I’ve never forgotten her opinion.
According to the Forbes list published last month, the highest paid celebrity over the past 12 months is music mogul Diddy, who earned $130 million (Dh478.14 million). He was followed by singer Beyonce on $105 million and Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling on $95 million. Perhaps in a sign that footballers are catching up, Real Madrid icon Cristiano Ronaldo was fifth on $93 million. The only other footballer in the top 20, however, was Barcelona rival Lionel Messi at 14 on $80 million (indeed, the only other athlete in the top 20 was NBA star LeBron James at tenth earning $86 million).
Barcelona are insisting that Neymar will remain at the club, but if his transfer worth £195 million (Dh933.68 million) to Paris Saint-Germain comes to fruition, expect the Brazilian to be the next footballer to penetrate that Forbes list. Can you ever justify one footballer being worth £195 million? And furthermore, a club being prepared to meet that buyout clause and actually pay the fee, as it has been confirmed PSG are?
Best-paid footballer
Can you ever justify Carlos Tevez’s Chinese Super League deal where he earns £634,000-a-week wages at Shanghai Shenhua and lucrative clauses worth an extra £4 million? That £634,000-a-week making him, on salary alone, the best-paid footballer on the planet. Can you ever justify provincial Premier League clubs such as Huddersfield Town, Swansea City and Bournemouth seemingly on a daily basis nowadays unveiling new players — and let’s be honest, many of whom even cluedup football fans have never heard of — for £10/£15/£20 million?
Middlesbrough broke their transfer record to sign striker Britt Assombalonga from Nottingham Forest for £15 million just the other day. His wages are reported to be around £40,000-aweek, yet neither of the clubs even play in England’s top division — they’re both Championship clubs.
Morally, the answer to all is almost certainly no and even the clubs themselves admit that. Telling was the quote from Eddie Howe, the manager of Bournemouth — a small, seaside club on the south coast of England who have punched well above their weight in the two seasons they have been in the Premier League — who readily admitted to being “uncomfortable” at forking out fees of around £20 million for players. However, Howe added to local paper the Daily Echo: “Had we not spent money over the past few years, I firmly believe we would not be in the Premier League now so it goes with the territory.”
Quite simply, when fans from London to Los Angeles, Abu Dhabi to Auckland and Dubai to Dakar are desperate to watch, and global television deals are worth billions and billions of pounds, the spending is proportionate with what the clubs can afford.
“Sport has a great advantage in that it is live, unscripted drama,” Dan Jones, a partner in the sports business group at Deloitte told the Daily Telegraph. “You can’t watch a box-set of sport. If you compare the audience to other genres, live sport holds up pretty well.” Because I guarantee that if you ask any Manchester City fan anywhere in the world how much that “Agggguuuuueeeerrrrrrroooo” goal to win the Premier League in 2012 was worth ... Or in that moment, how much Neymar’s injury-time winner in Barcelona’s astonishing Champions League comeback against, ironically, PSG earlier this year meant to a Barca supporter, you’ll receive just one word in reply.
Priceless.
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