It's only a game

As the great Bill Shankly once said “Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don't like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that”. Even as a Man Utd fan I still respect what Shankly did as a manager, however sadly he was wrong. Football is just a game.

I love football as much as the next person and during pre season I feel like my life is empty. I’ve been a mascot for Port Vale and shed tears over United; I love the banter that happens in football. I loved it when Roy Carroll dropped the ball against Tottenham and was so far in the net even the fishermen of England felt the ball. I argued that it never crossed the line even though I know it did, winding people up and singing “we’ll do what we want”. However I take it as much as I give it and being a United fan from Stoke, believe me I get it. So why do I think Shankly was wrong?

It is only a game, I still go work on Monday as do the majority of football fans because football is a working class sport. We live for Saturdays whether we’re playing or watching but nothing winds me up more than when I hear songs about the Munich air disaster, that really makes my blood boil. There’s simply no need what so ever. 

On that terrible day in 1958 there were no Man Utd players on that plane, there were no Man City fans there were simply human beings who had all come together for the beautiful game. Twenty three people died that day including the ex Man City goalkeeper Frank Swift. Do these sick idiots who sing the songs at United fans realise that? There were a total of 10 people who weren’t affiliated with the club who died that day, again a stat that always gets lost.

Another example of why the football is only a game is the tragedy of Hillsborough. On that sad day in 1989, there was 96 Liverpool supporters killed, there were 96 people who supported Liverpool, they were people first, Liverpool supporters second. I’ve loved the last few season watching Liverpool struggle, they are our old enemy but I would never dream of making any sort of jokes or chants regarding what happened on that day. Innocent people died that day and hope that one day there will be justice for the 96!

Racism is another reason, I can never understand how “supporters” can cheer foreign players one week then shout racial abuse at them the minute they put a national shirt on. I’d love to know how the human mind works because this baffles me, we all bleed red blood regardless of our colour, and personally the minute we kick racism out the better.

At the end of the day nobody should hear chants about disasters or racism. These players and fans are human beings and the minute people recognise this, the game will become even more beautiful.

Thank you for reading

Bloody Overpaid Footballers!

Reading the headline you may think that I'm having a rant about footballers wages. However it's the opposite, I'm defending footballers wages, the title is just the most common sentence I hear regarding footballers wages.

Every time a footballer signs a new contract and the papers "guess" at the reported wage the player will be getting (which is usually wrong) everybody pipes up "he doesn't deserve that!". There's nurses working 60 hours a week earning less than he makes in 3 days!

Now please don't think for one minute I'm knocking the hardworking staff of Britain, I'm not, nurses, soldiers, police, firemen and many other important services all deserve more money than they get. However just because Cristiano Ronaldo gets a reported £230k a week this doesn't mean he doesn't deserve or earn it because he doesn't save lives.

Britain's biggest export is Financial Services. We don't have the vineyards that France and Spain have, we don't have the weather to grow grapes, oranges etc. What we sell is knowledge and as the saying goes "knowledge is power". Footballers are a commodity, they are no different than knowledge. Footballers earn business's money and that's a fact. When Cristiano Ronaldo made his move to Madrid the fee was to be reported at £80 million, with a £12 million a year contract over 5 years. Meaning before bonus's and any other extras Ronaldo would cost Madrid £140 million. Now that might be Lord Sugar's pocket change but ultimately it's a lot of money. What was more interesting though was that Madrid estimated they could make this figure back in less than 6 months through merchandise! Technically meaning Ronaldo had cost them nothing.

Looking closer to home and being a Man Utd supporter when Wayne Rooney kicked up a fuss and was sent packing to America, I jumped on the band wagon, let him go, who does he think he is? To answer that question he'd simply discovered his own value. Wayne now earns a reported £11.5 million pound a year. Last year Man Utd won their 19th title, they reached the final of the Champions league where they lost to arguably the greatest football team ever. However had United triumphed on that day it would have meant that the Reds had earned an estimated £21.1 million pound in prize money alone for winning the Premier League and the Champions League. This is before TV deals, merchandise and the many other ways football clubs use to bring in money. This would have covered Rooney's wages alone!

Hopefully by now you are starting to see that football players are just an investment, they are no different than buying shares in a company. If that player performs well and so does the team then the business earns more money.

Also what you have to remember is that they are just human beings, If another company offered me double my money would I leave? YES of course I would. If someone is willing to pay Wayne Rooney £11.5 million pound a year why would he not take it?

For me though we have to look at the bigger picture also. Football is a high profile sport, sorry to any Rugby, Cricket fans but this is true. However compared to other high profile sports footballers get paid a lot less that other sports men. What about film stars and musicians? Nothing ever seems to get said about them? Below is a list of high earning sportsmen, movie stars and musicians. I will aim to rank this so that you can see the difference.

Sources are various websites and figures may vary.

Oprah Winfrey	£181.25 Million
Bon Jovi	£78.13 Million
Leonardo Di Caprio	£48.13 Million
Howard Stern	£47.5 Million
Fernando Alonso (F1)	£26.75 Million
Matt Ryan (American Football)	£20 Million
Alex Rodriguez (Baseball)	£20 Million
Rashard Lewis (Basketball)	£12.5 Million
Cristiano Ronaldo	£12 Million

I've tried to look at the highest earner from each area, as you can see Ronaldo does rub shoulders with a Basketball player but after that he's not even close. For me I really don't see what talent Oprah has and Howard Stern has just used shock tactics to bring in radio listeners, again no real talent just right time right place.

So as you can see, footballers are very well paid, however most have a gift, they have to work hard to get where they are and to stay there they have to work equally as hard. They earn money for there companies. However in the grand scheme of the "celebrity world" they are not well paid, they are actually amongst the lowest paid and too rest my case even more, JEDWARD earned £3 million each in 2010!!

Thank you for reading.

Chay