Footballers = overpaid muppets?

[Desmo]

All fair enough points MB. The problem with some of the lesser paid sports is that they're not team games, therefore they don't have a stadium that make 50,000+ people turn up every week to pay money to watch. This is where the money comes from.

If Paula Radcliffe could run in a stadium every weekend and get 50,000 people to watch, and more importantly, pay, then she'd get paid millions.

[Davey_Pitch]

Originally Posted by Feek

If football were marketed openly as a business then I'd say that they're not overpaid but as sportsmen, yes, they're ridiculously overpaid.

So all top sportsmen are overpaid? What about actors and musicians?

[Will]

Hardly, football takes the prize for highest earners. Rubgy players for example aren't paid even half as much, yet play at a higher level, more passion and honour than the pansies that are football players. Top athletes, swimmers and other types of atheletes, heck even snooker players aren't paid nearly near as much - yet they are so much more pleasant to read about, talk to, are generally more educated and in general much more bothered about their profession. They can call themselves professional sportsmen, the football players are mere puppets that don't have the guts to stand for any values and just go with what the flow is. Sure some of them do stuff for charity and whatnot, but they hardly are diplomats for the country or their sport. And the fans they bring along with them don't help. If they lowered the salaries and let them played for the passion of playing things would be different. I'm willing to bet that if you paid them say 200k a year you'd lose the majority of the teams, those that remained are either the mini leaguers that aren't that good, or left with the real passionate players.

[William]

Clubs pay them the money they need to keep them away from other clubs. It's an arms race. Well more of a legs race really harhar.

[Muban]

Performance related pay for Footballers that is what I would like to see. Not this 'based on his previous track record he is worth X million' contract -I mean paid a core wage (albeit a good one lets face it premier league footballers shouldn't work for nothing). The rest of the wage is performance related.

Do I think they are overpaid? Yes I do, especially with the amount of bitching they do about the pressure and the exposure (take the rough with the smooth, you can't have it both ways). Conduct yourself properly, make an effort and do a good job and it's amazing how much less hassle they would get anyway!

However, I think that about all sorts of people (footballers, actors, musicians etc).

[Nutcase]

As usual, others word my thoughts far better than I could - Huddy, MB and Will have all got it nailed

[Feek]

Not all, Davey but some are, yes. The top F1 drivers certainly are but I think that they're probably the main ones who are well overpaid. I don't really know much about other 'sports' so it's not fair for me to comment. F1 is very definately a business now and has been for a good few years.

As for actors, it's different. They're not hiding behind the concept of playing a game so I don't think the comparison is valid.

[Davey_Pitch]

Originally Posted by Will

Hardly, football takes the prize for highest earners.

Not really. Golfers, top racing drivers, and top US Sportsmen all earn more on average than footballers do. If you're just talking UK though, then you are indeed correct.

Edit: http://www.top10land.com/top-ten-hig...s-in-2007.html

[William]

Musicians work well hard, studio time and tours are stressfull as, I still do them for free however.

Well they're hard unless you are U2.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8EDuK46ZqFM

[Stan_Lite]

I think they are overpaid for what they do, in relation to other sports men and women. Most sports require single-minded dedication and training and require the top level players to give up "normal life" but very few are paid as highly as top level footballers. I don't blame the players, if someone wanted to pay me the salaries they earn, I'd bite their hand off. I don't even blame the clubs, they pay what they can afford to keep the best players they can afford - Tiger Woods doesn't play golf with a set of clubs costing £300 from J D Sports, he plays with a custom made set costing thousands of pounds.

I blame the fans for the ridiculous sums paid to these players. They are the ones who shell out up to £70 a week to watch the games (the lowest price for a ticket at Stamford Bridge is £35 ). Most English Premiership clubs charge over £20 for their cheapest tickets. For many of of the people paying these prices, this probably equates to around 10% of their earnings and then there's the obligatory team shirt, scarf, hat etc. If the fans said "No, we're not going to shell out 10% of our wages or £40 for a £10 shirt so that these guys can buy £5million houses and £200,000 cars, you'll have to pay them less and cut your prices or we won't watch."
It'll never happen but any football fan who goes to games or pays £20 a month to Sky, or however much it costs cannot complain about the players wages, it's their unwillingness to take a stand which perpetuates the situation.

The same goes for actors and musicians, if people refused to pay £8 to go to the pictures or £15-20 for a DVD or £14 for a CD, the artists would be forced to take a pay cut and give value to their fans.

We've nobody to blame but ourselves. I'm as guilty as the next man as I pay £15-£20 2 or 3 times a year to get into Celtic Park to watch the SPL champions work their magic