One thing that the coronavirus pandemic has taught us is that football wages are getting out of hand and it has to be controlled now before it destroys the game.
Teams like Arsenal and Liverpool get ridiculed for not being able to pay high wages to their players, but this tough time has shown that being reasonable when offering wages is the wise thing to do.
Today players don’t always justify why they earn so much and the nature of football contracts leave the clubs in a position where they have no choice but to pay the agreed wages.
The clubs are at the mercy of the players in times like this that they are struggling to pay them even though they are not even playing for the team.
I suggest that the world’s football governing body comes together and impose a salary cap and a cap on transfer fees.
This wouldn’t make any sense, especially to the players who would want their earnings to be unlimited.
However, the clubs have to fight for some sanity to be brought back to players’ earnings, otherwise, clubs will run out of business because they are paying more money in wages than they are bringing in through earnings.
Obviously there are rules, especially within the European Union where salary caps are very difficult to impose, however, if this pandemic has taught us one thing, it is if there is a necessity then rules will be changed and considering the financial catastrophe coming down the line I am expecting change on a significant basis.
The problem is that this virus has shown the way football clubs have been run until now, paying players a ridiculous percentage of their income, is not sustainable. There are many guilty parties having jumped on the football gravy train have lined their pockets and in the process have allowed a small group of society to have riches that are completely out of context to virtually anybody else. Even mega rich business men & women didn’t start off on millions a year. Financial success usually takes time but not in the world of a PL player where the rewards are given to the young who haven’t had enough life experiences to understand or appreciate what they have. Many end up with all sorts of mental health issues, spend money recklessly, have gambling problems for example.
I’d love to see a ceiling on salaries but I’m afraid I’m not sure the will is there as long as tv money rolls in.
What a sensible post Sue P. My post below will be in similar vein!
I have been longing for decades now for a major change in attitudes towards these obscene salaries, as it has been very clear that football is well on the road, to moral and financial bankruptcy. It is true, as Martin states, that most, even almost all players, will fight tooth and nail to bitterly resist wage cuts but since this pandemic has finally brought REAL HUMAN VALUES, back in the world spotlight, the greedy players and their parasitic agents will now also be fighting the doughty court of public opinion, which is WHY I am very hopeful that we now have a way out of this road to nowhere.
In the end ,if we do not lawfully limit the endless upwards direction of wages and also transfer fees, football will fall apart. There can be no serious doubt, even if some (though not me)had doubt before this virus struck . The simple facts are that from now onwards football will be fighting just to stand stil and almost all clubs worldwide, cannot afford to finance wages as they stand today. Consequently, wage cuts for all clubs is on the agenda and I need not remind Gooners how much our OWN players have fought it before finally agreeing to a minor and far too small cut. And WE are the first to implement them in our Prem, so the others are even more immoral than our players.
Many fans, going entirely from comments on this site, blame the clubs for offering obscene wages and not the players for accepting them. I blame BOTH sides equally and the immorality of such as Kroenke, Abramovitch , Sheikh Mansoor and that ilk is also disgusting and evil.
What has become clear to many fans and most decent people worldwide – and remember the majority care nothing for pro football at all – is that things have to massively change and that new moral attitudes MUST prevail.
Happily, I see this as a certainty, over time, albeit in gradual stages. I firmly belive that even FIFA and UEFA , in order to protect the sport they run, will be FORCED to bring in new rules concerning wages and also transfer fees , which will impose limits, though that will be of necessity a long and tortuous process and will involve court battles by players, agents but probably NOT by clubs.
In the end, the court of public opinion will help change even European laws of the land and I predict the players wil be left stranded to either accept this reality or be unemployed in football.
MANY OF THOSE PLAYERS WILL STILL BE TOO DULL WITTED TO SEE THAT THIS VITAL AND NECESSARY STEP WILL BE THEIR OWN (CAREER) SAVIOUR, AS WELL AS OURS. But who cares about their feelings? Not me! They have needed bringing into the real world for decades and now , at long last, we are on the edge of the long process that WILL vastly change things for the better.
I think what this enforced layoff and financial fallout to this pandemic has done is made everybody ( as Jon Fox has said a lot of us realised this anyway ) aware that even a weekly wage of £100,000, let alone £300,000, to a man who earns maybe £30,000 a YEAR, is totally obscene. As for the transfer stories going around that clubs are ready to pay 50 million to 100 million for players once we get back to normal are frankly absurd.
Indeed Marty
Cloud cuckoo land
Cant add any more to the very good posts by Sue, Jon and Marty. I for one will be giving less to the football bubble that is taking its dirty attitude to even greater levels during this time. The greed is disgusting and i for one will not be fuelling it like i have done in the past. I will not be greasing the dirty palms of the footballing world, unless i see a massive change which should be forth coming but i doubt it. Its a system where the rich are getting richer and the rest are not, that isn’t sport.
Very well said gentlemen.