Footballers' pay

[Nihilego]

(I'm sure this whole thing applies in America too but I wouldn't know so whatever)

In England, a footballer in the Premier League, the most popular league in the country, can get paid multiple millions of pounds for their job. For example, the team I support just sold a striker to Real Madrid for £30m; another purchased a striker for £22m, as well as Chelsea who famously purchased Torres for a hefty £50m. He proceeded to be appalling. On top of these transfer costs they can be paid tens, or in some cases hundreds (see: Didier Drogba - £250,000) of pounds a week. How do you feel about such high payments? Is it justified that footballers are paid these amounts? And furthermore (and most interestingly to me), how do you feel about the idea that, by offering vast amounts of money for players, teams are able to "buy" themselves support and success?

Discuss.

ALSO FOOTBALL = SOCCER.

 

[Eruption]

It could definitely apply to America with other sports, they run their sports like franchises so obviously they have the revenue to pay ridiculous amounts. Even though things like the NBA have salary caps, some of the players (I'm thinking like LeBron here) are on like $15m a year.

I don't particularly mind the fees paid in football (or wages), it just makes everything more interesting. I wouldn't be opposed if we had salary caps like how the US run their sports (including their soccer league) with salary caps and allocated budgets to spend on players, but without the player draft. Personally living in Middlesbrough, I feel like we would be one of the stronger teams in the Premier League if money wasn't heavily involved and every club heavily relied on their academies instead. Instead we have to languish in the Championship and we're just scraping the money for a squad that can challenge to get promoted.

Lets face it, nothing is going to change soon so we can only dream. :P

 

[Nihilego]

I don't honestly have much of an opinion on the idea of using salary caps. Allocated budgets, however, would definitely be much welcomed for me. If anything, just to stop us from having another Manchester City on our hands. I guess it's kinda obvious that I'm pretty against the idea of teams "buying" their victory but it seems to be the only way to go lol.

As for my own question in the first post, about if it's justifiable that they're paid so much, I'd like to throw this out there - although their job is arguably easier than that of other, lower-paid professionals, the money they're paid is justifiable by the money coming in for the sport as a whole. Thoughts, anyone? Basically they get paid big for bringing in big, even though it's not strictly the most taxing job ever.

 

[Brendino]

I'm only a casual football/soccer fan at best, but from what I can see without doing too much research, top-tier European football looks like you need to spend to win. Looking at the Premier League, teams like Man U, Man City, Arsenal, Chelsea, etc. are always competitive because they've got a lot of cash to throw around to not only to their own players, but for transfers as well. But when you look at teams that were just recently promoted like Reading and QPR, they have no real chance to compete for the championship since their payrolls are miniscule compared to the top clubs.

That being said, these teams can afford this because of the large amount of money they are making not only locally, but worldwide (even in Canada, almost every single day of the week I'll see at least one person with Man U gear on). However, I'm not necessarily a fan of this format of spending to win. I much prefer the salary cap system in the North American leagues like the NFL and NHL, because it gives the chance for all the teams in the league to be competitive by limiting their spending to X amount of dollars. This also means that the best players won't always flock to these stacked teams (although you do see it happen in the NBA with the Lakers, Celtics and Heat). Teams that are usually pretty equal in terms of competition make for a much more exciting game, which in turn is better for business.

I'm not quite sure if I'm a fan of the ridiculous amounts of money that athletes in general make, though. Yes, they are the best in the world at what they are doing, and they make their teams money by being there, but what exactly makes them so much more valuable than even some of their own teammates? Is there any quantity of skill that can measure someone like John Terry being worth £90,000 more per week than Gary Cahill to Chelsea? On top of that, many people will never even come close to making in a year what these athletes make in a week, yet we are the ones paying their salaries (indirectly, but you get the point). It makes me even angrier in a situation like with the NHL over here, where there is a potential to be a work stoppage because they feel that they aren't making a high enough % of the team's earnings. If the fans weren't there watching, you wouldn't be getting paid for our amusement.

But, as long as people keep paying for tickets, merchandise, etc., players are going to continue making such large sums of money.