Stars need to prove they are worth it

CORONAVIRUS, we are often reminded, may not greatly affect the young, fit and healthy. That doesn’t mean it won’t have its casualties in the world of sport.

Financial, mainly. Mesut Ozil’s, pictured, contract with adidas, for instance. That’s a coronavirus statistic, right there. When the decision makers in Herzogenaurach, the company headquarters in Bavaria, got around to making calls on short-term monetary commitments, the £2.5 million (R53.5 million) annually paid to Ozil was considered unnecessary.

It wasn’t just that his star was waning as a professional performer. Ozil is noticeably high maintenance. He has fallen out with his Chinese fan base — albeit on a point of principle — he has retired from international football, he is a very public ally of Turkey’s repressive president Recip Tayyip Erdogan and he was singled out as a player who would not work amicably with his club to cut costs in the midst of economic crisis.

Arsenal have hardly covered themselves in glory since. They have terminated the contracts of youth scouts earning roughly £200 a week. Even so, Ozil’s intransigence on a £300 000 weekly salary — plus some rather unhelpful, self-serving statements from his agent — was not a good look at the time the country was plunging into recession.

Ozil later gave £80 000 to Turkish Red Crescent but by then the damage was done — adidas sniffed the air and terminated accordingly.

Gareth Bale has a similar endorsement contract and won admirers across Europe with a £1m donation split between hospitals in Wales and Spain. Plus, he is by all accounts easy to work with. Bale might have his struggles at Real Madrid but his sponsors say he is a willing and trouble-free partner. In the post-coronavirus world, this matters. Money has to go further. Money has to work harder. More than ever, high maintenance must be earned. It is no shock, then, that another early casualty of changed circumstances is Mario Balotelli, whose time at Brescia looks to be over after one season.

“I think we both made a mistake,” said owner Massimo Cellino, whose club are bottom of Serie A, nine points adrift of safety.

It could be argued that Cellino is the ownership equivalent of Balotelli: erratic, unpredictable and those who believe they can change him become swiftly disillusioned. Cellino bought Balotelli after Brescia won promotion last season, in the hope he could blossom by returning