Players are overpaid? Tell me something new.

By European Football
March 24 2006

Regardless of your allegiance, be it Spurs, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United or my own beloved under achievers Newcastle, a subject which must have cropped up from time to time over a pint (or in the case of Chelsea fans a glass of tizer) must have been players wages.

I know. I have given it a lot of thought, mainly along the lines of ‘he gets paid how ***&&** much?’

And there are always chairmen willing to point out that his players simply are not worth what they are paying them?

Now lets just wait and think about that for a second, who is it that gives them that wage in the first place?

Is it you or me, with a pay packet envy problems, or is it the chairman in question?
I have a few expenses in my life as well, I like to call them children (I like to call them other things as well, but usually wait until they are out of ear-shot), but I don’t blame the children for asking, I just say no, its not like they are going to run and sign for the bloke next door because he offers more pocket money.

Unfortunately this does not follow for the average footballer, they know that if they are metaphorically denied first place in the queue at the sweet counter, there might just be another sweet shop around the corner.

All chairman do this, they outbid their rivals, and have created a player driven economy, is this the players fault?

Well ask yourself this, when you are at work (or school in the Chelsea case) imagine if someone offered to ten times your wages today, how long would you stay?
Personally there would be skid marks on the carpet, I would be moving so quickly. It’s not the player’s fault, the chairmen created the economic climate they now have to function in.

Agents are usually blamed, and while it’s a section of humanity I usually rate slightly lower than toxic death syndrome, I cannot blame them for exploiting the conditions to the best of their ability, hell I do the same, only for a lot less money.

The answer to this is simple, they all join forces and stick to a maximum wage, but chairman are usually people who have gotten to the top by being a bigger bastard than the man below them, and how long would it be before one of them broke the deal? I give it 5 minutes.

So they pay the wages, they created the conditions and they do the complaining, personally my sympathy is limited.