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
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