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| Some of England's young football millionaires (Picture of Marks and Spencers advertisement) |
When he was captain of Manchester United, Roy Keane reportedly had it written into his contract that he was to be the best paid player at the club. Knowing Keane, this was as much about his desire to be top dog as his financial aspirations. David Beckham might be sexier, Ryan Giggs more exciting, Paul Scholes a better passer but Keane was captain and leader so nobody would earn more than him. Footballers are like that – driven, competitive and very aware of their status (except when it is starting to decline).
Keane earned around £50,000 a week from Manchester United – and increased that when he went to Glasgow to play for Celtic despite being past his best by then and surplus to requirements at United. That is about a tenth of what their new star man Alexis Sanchez is reportedly being paid. United came second in the league and the FA Cup and lost in the first knock out round in the Champions League last season so it is not as if that weekly half a million which they pay Sanchez helped them win any trophies.
What is interesting is that footballer’s incomes are still labelled ‘wages’ and quoted in weekly sums. This comes from the fact that they were paid by the week as working class men were in the days when football became professionalised and the habit has stuck. Maybe there is an element of snobbery in it as well, however. These are not highly qualified people just men who happen to be good at kicking a piece of inflated leather around. What do they do with the rest of their money once they have paid for the weekly shop and the mortgage? Put it in the bank - after they have paid their parking tickets. (Many of them apparently have a park anywhere attitude and pay the resulting fines, which are negligible for them.) It is a short career and not one that leads anywhere much unless they succeed at coaching or go into the television studios to analyse their successors when they retire in their early thirties, later if they are lucky.
In contrast, businessmen (and, occasionally, women) do not earn wages but are paid annual salaries, which often match those of Premier League footballers. The top earning businessman in the UK is Sir Martin Sorrell who can earn £50 million a year, well above what Sanchez or any of his colleagues make. He runs a company called WPP, which I had never heard of, and is presumably good at what he does, even if he is in his seventies now and might think about taking a rest. Fat chance. Like footballers, businessmen are driven to succeed and do not relax when they have made ‘enough’ money, like the rest of us. They probably do not have much time to enjoy their wealth as they are so busy making it.
Businessmen do not get half the criticism that footballers do for what they make, yet arguably they are not worth the enormous incomes they command in the way that athletes are. England had a fairly successful World Cup and reached the semi-finals, although they lost three games in the end (two to Belgium, who they usually beat and one to Croatia, which has less than half the population of London). What was significant, however, was that the country practically ground to a halt when their games were on. I even sacrificed some expensive theatre tickets to watch them, deciding that I cared more about our national team than about a governess who was paid twenty pounds a year (not a week) to teach the children of the King of Thailand in The King and I, which was admittedly set over a hundred years ago.
Much of the disapproval people voice about the earnings of footballers comes from the fact that they are often uneducated in comparison to other high-achievers. The England coach Gareth Southgate actually earned eight GCSEs and could probably have gone to university if he had wanted to do but the demands of mastering the skills needed to succeed in soccer override the need for academic qualifications and so the idea of the thick footballer emerges. Why do they earn so much when they would not succeed at anything else?
But they do succeed at what people pay good money to watch, either in the flesh or on the screen. Who else can make the country stop for a couple of hours and then celebrate/mourn when they win/lose? Certainly not some businessperson paid millions a year to run a company more efficiently, which often means being prepared to lay off workers. Kicking people out of jobs in order to make the business more efficient may be necessary but it does not bring joy in the way that sport does. Kicking a football around, however, can make the country stop for a couple of hours. Moreover, there is a lot of money in the game mainly from the huge sums paid for television rights. No-one complains about these fees and it is the players who make them possible.
So, f anybody is worth a lot of money in our unequal society, it is footballers.. They bring joy to many and can stop the country in a way that no-one else can. They have a short time to earn it and the rest of their lives to spend it.
Edwin Lerner
My other blog is diaryofatouristguide.blogspot.com
