Nowadays, footballers live in a lullaby of arousing affairs, classy clothing and (if I’m honest) mediocre metaphors. The 1950s marked the beginning of modern football and thus the modern footballer. Domestic leagues had begun to regain the strength they had prior to World War II and football embedded itself into the nation’s hearts as England’s favorite sport.
Despite footballers of the past having every bit of the hunger and determination of their modern successors, they were not nearly as well rewarded for their efforts on the pitch. England of the 1950s was a place where the maximum wage a player would receive was £15 per week! To put that into perspective Samuel Eto’o, the world’s highest paid footballer, earns over £364,000 per week. That’s a 24,305% increase! He makes the weekly sum of his 1950s counterpart in under a minute and the yearly salary of the modern day average English worker in under a 24 hours.
Samuel Eto’o is not alone in earning over £1 million per month; many of his colleagues achieve this with ease. To name a few, Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney all achieve this sum and more.
Despite what some critics may say, footballers DO deserve their inflated wages. ‘But all they do is kick a ball around for 90 minutes a week!’ I hear you cry but is that their fault? Its easy to take the moral high ground when you make a fraction of what they do but if the roles were reversed do you honestly believe that you would turn down a lucrative contract on the basis that you are being paid too much?
Furthermore, is there such a thing as being paid too much? That is not to say that footballers don’t have their dream job regardless of their pay packet, but what sets them apart from everybody else is that they get paid for the privilege of doing what they love and bringing joy to thousands, even millions of people every week.
In that respect, the fact that they bring joy to so many means that maybe they don’t get paid enough. They put their bodies on the line every week, going into tackle after crunching tackle. And for what? The amusement of total strangers,that’s what. Of course the risk of serious injuries such as those suffered by Arsenal’s Eduardo and Aaron Ramsey in 2008 and 2010 respectively are often overlooked by fans who think that such a risk is a small price to pay for the untold fame and fortune that comes with playing in the Premier League. Then again, Google ‘David Busst’ and tell me if you think his money comforted him after his tragedy…
Regardless of whether you agree with it or not, footballers will always earn more money than they know what to do with. What’s more, if figures are anything to go by, they will keep getting paid more and more. However, when put into a wider sporting context, footballers don’t earn as much as their basketball, cricket and baseball-playing counterparts. The Premier League is behind the NBA (National Basketball Association) in terms of salaries dished out; NBA stars earn an average of £68,300 per week which more than twice what Premier League stars do.
Even more staggering is that the average cricketer in the Indian Cricket Premier League earns £57,800 a week for the entire 365-day year despite the league season only lasting six weeks. English footballers get paid significantly less for playing a 38-week, 9 month season. Finally, Major League Baseball is the third biggest culprit for high wages, with teams being paid around £40,000 per week.
Ultimately you have to remember that sport, while fun to you and I, is nothing but a business to others. If one club doesn’t offer a player x-amount a week for play for them, one of their rivals will and that is just not on for clubs wanting to make progress. Perhaps a wage cap will be introduced one day and put an end to this saga but until then it’s a dog-eat-dog town for clubs wishing to do well and paying inflated wages has become part and parcel of the game. Be honest, as long as Messi mesmerises, Ronaldo remains rampant and Heskey hilariously hits anything but the net, who cares how much they make?
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