WHAT DO THE NAMES JOHNNY HAYNES, JIMMY HILL AND GEORGE EASTHAM HAVE IN COMMON AND HOW DO THE EFFECT TODAY’S FOOTBALL(ERS)?
Let’s start with Johnny Haynes, a man who supported The Arsenal, was wanted by the Spuds and signed for Fulham, playing there for 20 years.
He earned 56 England caps and was captain for 22 of those.
He has a statue erected in his honour outside Craven Cottage and up until 1961, he was earning £10 a week and ultimately became the first £100 a week player.
How did this happen?
Well, Jimmy Hill campaigned for the abolishment of the maximum wage for footballers and on the 18/1/61 succeeded in doing just that.
Did that mean it was plain sailing for the professional footballer then?
Enter George Eastham and his dispute with Newcastle United, after he asked for a transfer, amid interest from The Arsenal.
At that time, the clubs could refuse a player a transfer request, but even more unbelievable was the fact that they could then, by law, hold on to his registration, thereby stopping him from moving on.
George went on strike for 6 months and took Newcastle to court.
He won his case and moved to The Arsenal.
In 1961 the average working wage was £10, thus was Johnny Haynes’s wage before Jimmy Hill’s intervention.
In 1970 the average working was £28, while the average wage for a top player was around.
the £14,000 mark.
In 1980 the average working wage was £6,000, while the average wage for a top player was around the £25,000 mark.
In 1990 the average working wage was £12,353, while the average wage for a top player was around. the £77,000 mark.
In 2000 the average working wage was £18,000 while the average wage for a top player was around the £87,000 mark.
In 2010 the average working wage was £26,000 while the average wage for a top player was around the £1.17 million mark.
In 2020 the average working wage was £39,000 while the average wage for a top player was around the £3.5 million mark.
It is reported that the lowest paid player in the PL is a Nottingham Forest youngster on £3,462 a week (180,024 a year) while Kevin De Bruyne is reportedly on £384,615 a week (just under £20 million a year).
Where has the money come from, after the three men above opened the floodgates?
Television rights in the UK are as follows:…
1993/97 = £214 million
98/2001 = £743 million
02/2004 = £1.38 billion
05/2007 = £1.13 billion
08/2010 = £1.88 billion
11/2013 = £1.95 billion
14/2016 = £3.2 billion
17/2019 = £5.34 billion
19/2022 = £5.0 billion
23/2028 = £6.7 billion over four years.
So, it seems that the money being spent within football will continue to rise, especially the transfer fees and players’ salaries.
Please let’s not hear any more the views that top players have a short career, as the young Forest player quoted above will earn £1,800,000 over a ten-year period IF his salary isn’t increased by a single penny. While the average working person will earn, at today’s rate, £400,000 in the same period.
I wonder if Johnny Haynes, Jimmy Hill and George Eastham ever thought we would be in this unbelievable situation within English football?
Ken1945
Please note that all the £ figures are reported from sites such as The Guardian,
CALLING ALL ARSENAL FANS! Anyone who would like to contribute an Article or Video opinion piece on JustArsenal, please contact us through this link…
Really interesting Article Ken. Really educational…..thank you🤩.
👍
I sense a point of diminishing returns (kind of) in the future. These tv guys should start lowering the money they pay (if possible). That’s where it all starts from. PSG and the Arab money isn’t helping at all.
I imagine what Saka’s agent will demand from his next contract renewal talks. My guess is £500k p/w
What a thoroughly interesting read Ken1945
It was a short career back then. Apart from Match of the Day there wasn’t much in the way of a former player continuing in the world of football and I remember that many became publicans afterwards. They did earn more and needed to be wise in how they invested for the future.
Bring on the Premier League and the obscene TV money and the incomes have sky rocketed. Sky and co are filled with former players earning a very decent crust once their footballing days are over. Even Championship level former players are busy on tv punditry as more and more football is televised
That is a good point. They didnt have a way to get the extra cash they get now from being pundits.
Also they get sponsorship now, image rights, advertising etc etc.
In the old days not many played up to age 30. Running a pub kinda cashed in on their fame a bit but that was all they had. Better than grinding it out in a factory or down a mine though.
👍
Great article Ken, your historical knowledge and insight into all things Arsenal and football in general are good to read.
👍
Thanks Ken. That is v interesting. Not too surprised though.
I was looking to see when the big jump was and it looks about 2000 – 2010. Up to 2000 or maybe a bit later, footballers were getting about 5 or 6 times average wage. That’s after 1961 ofc.
The TV money went up a lot just before that and maybe players and agents cottoned on to the money clubs were making and wanted a slice.
The figures for 1970 threw me a bit tho. I guess £28 average working wage is weekly, same as 1961 above it but the footballer pay for 1970 is per year? Otherwise it wd be a complete outlier with players getting loads more than workers in 1970.
One thing I’m not so sure about though is if it will continue. I know people who cancelled Sky sports and BT bcos its just too expensive. They dont get any money when people watch foreign channels on a freebie and lots of ppl are doing that now.
I think they will price themselves out of the market and in any case I think a lot of ppl are getting cheesed off with money buying trophies. It doesnt mean as much as it used to.
👍
Nice piece. While I detest the amount of money spent in transfer and wages, I am somewhat glad that players are getting the share of it. Most of the players are from poor background and they work their butts off to get to where they are. Corporate greed is really causing a big harm to the sports. We can barely afford cable tv and soon we will not be able to afford the tickets to the game.
You are kidding right.
If u think someone has worked their butt off to get to be a footballer at 18 and be done at 30 with zillions in the bank then you aint seen what working your butt off is really about.
A lot of older ppl who ground out a boring job for 40 plus years for peanuts would laugh at that.
You think any one can be a footballer playing at the top level? People are being paid based on what the market dictates and not what how much sweat they put in. Just because they are making millions at 18 doesn’t mean they don’t deserve their fair share of revenue they are generating.
No. I didnt say that. I said it is not “working your butt off” whatever amount of pay they get.
There is a difference between developing some talent for a game which you were born with and doing hard work.
Playing sports has always been fun for me not hard work. Even the training bit. I never ever thought “omg I am working my butt off this is such a hard life”.
You think sports don’t need a hardwork? Talent can only take you so far. Just because someone does a manual labor doesn’t mean they work harder than other person in other field. Yes, the type of line of work can differ and brutal for some but hard working is all the same. An investment banker might not break his back but will still need to put in more hours in order to be successful. Professional footballers got to where they are not just through the talent but also putting effort to sharpen their skills through hard work. Anyway my point is they deserve their shair of spoils since they are the ones generating the billions of revenue.
No point saying any more. Sport is fun not work.
When kids play sports its not hard work. Then one day they find they are good and get paid millions. Oh no what terrible hard life that is.
Remember you said “work their butts off to get to where they are”. Get to where they are. Not how hard they might have to work after they get there.
Even after they make it to the PL it is not what many ppl would think is a hard life.
Comparing them to other ppl doesntmake it ok esp ppl who I dont think deserve what they get either. Bankers? lol I mean really?
I’m not going to spend more time on this. It is not worth the effort. You think they are worth all those millions due to all their “hard work”. And I dont agree. Obv nobody gonna change their mind. Nothing more to say here.
it doesn’t matter what you say. Just because they are entertaining you doesn’t mean they got there just like that. if it were that easy, all of us will be a footballer. it’s not me or you to decide if they deserve the money they are earning. Market dictates that. They generated that revenue and they deserve a big share of it.
ok, seems you wont just accept a difference of opinion and move on.
You are not posting sensible things. I didn’t say they “get there just like that”, I said playing football as a kid isnt what anyone would think is hard work like you try to make out. And its obvious not everyone can get there bcos it takes talent same as loads of other kind of work.
Basically, its not a hard work thing its just something you are born with or not. Other folk have other talents but they dont get millions for them.
Generating revenue. They do the same as the guys who got 10 quid a week in the past! Agents and other types like that big it up and fleece the public by putting it behind paywalls.
In the past you cd watch every sport on BBC and ITV all covered by the TV licence fee. But the cunning gits in business change it so ppl are paying through the nose for it and ppl are gullible enough to pay it. I did for a while but I wised up.
Businesses used to charge their costs and add a bit of reasonable profit. Now they try to charge you whatever they think you can afford.
That’s artificially “generating revenue” through a nasty business model.
If it doesnt matter what i say then it doesnt matter what you say. But here we are, exchanging views and opinions. Only when we do that can ppl wise up and maybe enough ppl think “Yeah, stuff that. I’m not playing that game any more”. Thats why it does matter what we say in places like this.
Neutral, you are completely IN TOUCH with the reality of life and I ADMIRE YOU FOR STANDING UP FOR THAT LIFE REALITY.
As YOU and I both know , the long standing charade and conning of ordinary decent fans by the many corporate thieves and also FIFA, UEFA and the Premier league itself are the guilty ones who morallly STEAL from ordinary fans and who play Robin Hood BUT IN REVERSE, by stealing from the ordinary poor and gifting the ordiary fans money to the already filthy rich and their disgusting morals dead agents.
BTW did you see the story of Union Berlin?
They qualified to play in the CL for the first time this year and they had a meeting to decide if they wanted to play in it or not! lol
The club is run on a basis of kinda “real football”. They think some clubs should not be in the CL. They listed 4 which were City, Chelsea, PSG hmmm can’t remember the other one. So they didn’t want to play with that lot on principle.
In the end they decided to play in it. But I read about them and thought wow, that is a real club. I hope the whole game goes back that way one day. I might join the ppl who are getting into “grass roots football” instead of caring about all these overpaid primadonnas. I voted with my wallet a long time ago. Cancelled Sky donkey’s years back and never signed up for BT Sports ever. So I sure ain’t funding them 😀
Anyway. I’ll see if I can find the Union Berlin story and link it if I can dig it out. In case it’s of interest
Found one piece on Union Berlin.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/66769248
Guess it won’t appear until admins do their thing.
Another one here
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/50225455
Fans gave blood and donated the money to the club to keep it afloat!
(they get paid for blood donations in Germany)
Real community football! 👍
Whilst I have a ginormous amount of respect for your willingness not to support the gravy train, I still have a subscription for sports.
I think the sky and TNT’s of this world are not bidding to quite the same degree which is great news….. until Saudi money muscles in on the entire sporting calendar
😔
Yes the Saudis are doing some weird stuff in a lot of sports right now. Today Rahm the golfer announced he is joining the LIV thing for 450 million dollars. That’s totally bananas.
But I expect Saudi will go like China. Do they think people here will start supporting Riyadh United or whatever just because they bought some decent players? Nah cant see that.
But buying up Newcastle and other PL clubs is making a big difference.
It wasnt that hard for me to give up the sports subs tbf. A mate of mine said he “stopped going to football matches when they started applauding the square ball”.
I stopped the subs when City and Chelsea started buying everything in sight then getting off light for breaking ffp rules.
Even rugby has gone nuts now. The business ppl who bought the Premiership clubs wanted to stop relegation to protect their business. Now clubs are going bust bcos they cant make enough money while the union make millions of profit.
Business corrupts sport imho. It shouldnt be about money. Back in 1961 like ken1945 said in the article, they wd play for a tenner a week. Average wage. For the fun of the game and a bit of fame. And maybe bcos the other choice was going down a pit every day lol
I posted a couple of links above with Union Berlin articles. Real football imo. Waiting for mod to ok the links. Thats how sport should be (for me anyway).
If Arsenal win the EPL will fans feel 100% ok with it? Maybe some will have a sneaking feeling that a lot of it was just about having more money than clubs like Brentford or Fulham. It won’t feel like 2004. And it shouldnt.
Sry didnt realise I wrote all that lol. 😱
Its just a subject that bothers me and theres a lot going on atm esp with Saudi as you say.
Neutral, While I deeply admire you own personal decision and stance towards the gross greed of ALL Prem players wages, I do have Sky sports and TNT subscriptions and Amazon Prime too. I loathe myself for not standing up for my principles, which on wages, are as yours are.
But I ABSOLVE MY CONSCIENCE, by accepting that I , LIKE ALLOTHER HUMANS EVERYWHERE, am designed with faults and we cannot expect to be perfect, nor to never make mistakes.
That principle underlines my loathing of VAR, as I WOULD FAR RATHER ACCEPT THAT MATCH REFS MAKE HONEST MISTAKES, JUST AS PLAYERS DO AND FANS TOO. I accept that by simply following top level football at all, I am being grossly hypocritical to my views on how society is and ought to be run.
But as I constantly both say and write, ALL we humans are HYPOCRITES, as it is a perfectly natural and normal part of our common human condition. And therefore we cannot help being so!
I understand the sentiment, but it’s just free-market capitalism. They can only get these salaries because their talents are in demand, and the market establishes the price. If you don’t like it, stop contributing to it. If the clubs, Sky etc stop making so much money the players will not be able to demand these types of salaries. I don’t see the same kind of outrage over actors and musicians that make this kind of money (or more).
I see plenty of ppl annoyed over actors and musicians.
Someone described the Oscars a while back as being “a bunch of millionaires awarding themselves gold statues for playing dress-up”.
In Germany they have a rule that the club must keep more than half its shares. So there is never any owner but the club. Too late for the PL.
But the top German clubs are still pretty good when they have to get by on normal amounts of money.
And yeah I agree about the stop supporting it thing. I have stopped a while back. Cancelled sports subs. I just keep an eye on results now.
A lot of football is panto now. Or soap opera maybe. Like what daft thing did The Special One say today? What manager is getting sacked? What rumours are there about transfers? And so on. Not sport really just reality TV kinda stuff.
ArGooner, I have come to regard you as a wise and sensible person.
I have to say that on actors and musician,in general though, you clearly have NO IDEA how few of both earn the sort of salaries you refer to. The majority of both earn no more than and often far less than the average national wage.
It was a poor analogy to choose to try to make your point. I know, as I was active in both those worlds. Actors in particular, are out of work, on average , for 93% of the time.
In much the same way that the majority of football players do not earn those figures either. You can’t limit the comparison to premier league players Vs all musicians and actors So that doesn’t really have anything to do with this either
The comparison I was actually making was clearly to those musicians signed to major record labels or actors in Hollywood movies. Those are the top of their careers with the highest earning power.
Ar Gooner I always read exactly what other posters write and make my comments accordingly.
I do not try to anticipate what they may or may not privately mean but go only by what they say or at least strongly imply.
I cannot be expected to know – as you did not say, nor even imply- that you were referring to ONLY those of the very top earnings in music and theatre.
I accept you referred to the OSCARS but you did not make it clear that almost all actors and musicians are FAR, FAR financially poorer than those attending the Oscars.
BTW, the majority of Prem and EFL fooballers earn FAR more than the majority of actors and musicians. Many times more too, in MOST cases.
AN IMPORTANT,WELCOME AND NECESSARY ARTICLE , WELL WRIITEN AS USUAL Ken.
One minor point though surprised me greatly, WHICH was that in 2020 the AVERAGE working wage was £39000!! Really? I would love to know from where your info came, as my opinion is that £39000 is far in excess of MOST peoples working wage even right now in 2023, some three years later than your figure given.
Of course IF a few percent only of working people received wages of say £150,000, it would massively misrepresent the majority of working folk, while still giving an AVERAGE of, apparently, £39000.
Which goes to show me that averages can often be wildly disproportionate to the actual wage for MOST folk.
Jon, a slip of my typing finger – it should be £29,000.
Just ask Google and they supply the information.
THANKS KEN, but do you not check further than what Google claim as fact?
And if not, then why not?
Normally, when I’m confirming what I can remember (Haynes, Hill and Eastham for instance) I always use Google, who then give me links as well as their own facts.
I use transfer market, PL site, newspapers, Wikipedia, The Arsenal website and our own official handbooks.
It really depends on what I want to cross reference to be honest and the average weekly figure came from a government site via Google.
Reassuring info KEN AND MANY THANKS!
It’s difficult to imagine that footballers once earned the same pay as the rest of us. In the 50’s my friends dad was offered a pro contract with Carlisle and turned it down to be a fireman, because the pay wasn’t enough for him to support his young family.
And even today a pro contract with Carlisle is probably still not enough to support a family lol
The highest paid player at Carlisle is on a reported £5,000 a week and they have over 40 registered players earning a salary… according to Google.
KEN AND OTHERS, Would you be interested to know what a jobbing, mostly out of work actor, or a mostly employed orchestra musician earns in a year? I am referring to the posts(above) by Ar Gooner who iscompletly out of touch with what those professionals earn!
I can promise you it is WAY, WAY less than anywhere near “£5000” weekly. The acting profession taken as a whole, is unemployed 93% of the time. Not so with footballers of course.
Their yearly salary bill is just under £3,000,000 a weekly wage bill of just under £57,000,… Google again.
I was kidding above, not being literal but partly cos I never thought for one second they wd be paying their players that much.
Jesus H. How does a club that size survive? No wonder they go bankrupt all the time.
BTW The links re Union Berlin articles have come through above.
👍
Interesting to see that Union Berlin don’t consider City, Newcastle or PSG as worthy CL contenders, due to the kind of backing they are getting Neutral.
Thanks for putting that up for scrutiny, but I don’t think ANY PL club would survive if they were owned by their supporters, do you?!
Well, that’s a good question. The way things are now they prob wd not survive.
But then Barcelona and Real are owned by their supporters? Barcelona seems to do ok.
A search said this on Wikipedia about them:
Along with Real Madrid, Athletic Bilbao, and Osasuna, Barcelona is organised as a registered association. Unlike a limited company, it is not possible to purchase shares in the club, but only membership. The members of Barcelona, called socis, form an assembly of delegates which is the highest governing body of the club. As of 31 May 2023, the club has 150,317 socis.
Those socis are basically supporters who get a membership of the club when they join and they run it between them. Somehow.
More to know there about how they make it work. Can’t be as simple as having the ppl on JA running Arsenal lol.
Maybe a registered association is something in Spanish law and might be different in England. Dunno.
How wd the supporters get their club back is another question now that an owner has it? I always wondered why the Supporters Trusts of clubs never get in and make a bid when their clubs are up for sale.
I would suggest that someone like Mr Kronkie would just keep upping the anti until it was out of the reach of any Supporters Trust?
Yes if the club was up for sale in the same way Man U was recently then the price wd be hefty.
Best way is when a club is bankrupt or doing badly and its that thing where the club gets sold for £1 but the winning bid is always about who has the money to put in to bring the club back. And a plan.
Supporters wd have to have a better plan than the business types and a way to get the money together. Crowdfunding might work these days but ppl wd want a share in the club . Maybe doing something like the socis do wd work. Not sure.
There must be a way, when the time is right. If anyone is part of a supporters trust maybe its something to talk to them about. Sry I’m just chucking random ideas around atm lol.
A great read Ken and some very interesting comments made fellow fans. Like many on here I am a fan since the seventies and was lucky enough to get my first season ticket when we moved to the Emerites.
I also stopped my Sky subscription many years ago and joined the many football fans scouring the net in search of free streams.
Four years ago I moved to Austria where to my great surprise I found a product called SkyX which shows all the sport (except Rugby) that is available on sky Uk. This includes ALL premier league games! Yes all including the 3pm Saturday games.
This costs 99 euros per year.
In conclusion Sky viewers in UK and Ireland are being financially abused by sky.
Really interesting post edward.
I wonder if SkyX cd be got in UK using a VPN. I am guessing it will be blocked in UK or nobody wd buy ordinary Sky.
Like you said it shows how ppl in UK are being ripped off. If the PL is really a global product then why penalise the UK ppl?
It might not help me tho cos I ditched the BBC TV tax a while back as well lol. So can’t watch live anything even if its from another country.
All TV is a complete rip off these days. Even the drama stuff is spread across loads of companies. They expect us to have 10 subscriptions of £8 a month. The hell with that I say. I dont have any of them. Not that I cant afford it, just dont wanna be a sucker. And from what I see of it, its just not that good any more.
I know a very good package here in Spain which has everything. Send me an email….
Thanks Pat but sadly I wd not be able to use it (no tv licence).
Unless it has stuff on catchup maybe.
Thanks Edward – I’ve come to the conclusion that we, in the UK, are ripped off all over the place!!
I’m a regular visitor to Portugal and I can buy a lovely coffee and cake for one euro fifty!!
The price here in rip off UK?
Anything from £4.00 to £8.50!!!
Just ONE example.