Look after the foundations
Older fans can be prone to wax lyrical of the days when thousands stood on the terraces to watch their footballing heroes, men such as Tom Finney, Jackie Milburn and Stanley Matthews.
Yet I wonder whether many of the stands would have passed today’s more stringent health and safety legislation?
And of course, players didn’t get what they deserved, being limited to a stringent Maximum Wage. So once their careers ended, it was often a struggle to gain alternative employment, especially as they’d missed the opportunity to learn a trade through choosing professional sport instead.
Eventually the Minimum Wage was abolished in 1961, with Fulham’s Johnny Haynes becoming the first footballer to earn £100 a week. Few begrudged players the chance to make the most of their relatively few years in the limelight. After all, they were still providing relatively cheap entertainment for mass audiences.
Sadly, today that isn’t the case. The Premier League pays an average of £50,000 a week, with De Gea of Manchester United and Aubameyang of Arsenal getting £375,000 a week. Thanks to his former club Real Madrid paying more than half his salary, Tottenham’s Gareth Bale receives an astonishing £600,000 every seven days. Without that additional payment, Bale would “only” be receiving £220,000 a week. No wonder therefore that the lifestyles of soccer players are far removed from the names of the past, what with their Cheshire pads and nightclub lifestyles. And unlike Georgie Best, they have by and large managed to cope with their wealth without going off the rails.
Of course those who turn out for the Mariners week after week don’t enjoy such riches. Yet Grimsby Town is a valuable part of England’s footballing pyramid, which can see a non-league side like Wimbledon rise to the top division and win the FA Cup in the process. Similarly players make their progress through the divisions – locally I recall when
Liverpool signed Scunthorpe’s Kevin Keegan, giving The Iron some much-needed transfer money in the process.
And so I think it is vital in these Covid days of fan-free matches that the most affluent clubs help to support those in the EFL, teams like Grimsby that don’t earn millions from sponsorships or TV rights. If Manchester United can go after a player they’re prepared to pay £90 million plus for, then they can hardly complain that the pandemic has impoverished them.
The thing of course about a pyramid is that if you remove some of the blocks at the bottom, the whole structure is in danger. I hope those billionaire owners at Chelsea and Manchester City soon realise that.