Average income of a pro and semi professional footballer...

[King_Crud]

We have to remember that professional athletes' income earning is opposite to the rest of the world.  It's front-loaded, and they must then live off their savings for the rest of their lives, while inflation eats away at what's left when they hang up their boots.  You or I work for 30 odd years, slowly growing our life savings, scrimping and saving, and socking away what we can, hopefully making more every year until we, too, hang it up.  The professional player has to worry about wealth preservation over the majority of his lifetime.  You and I work until retirement which usually occurs from 60 to 67, depending on personal circumstances.  So, yeah, their salaries seem like a lot.  They are a lot.  But not from the perspective of 40+ more years of having to live off of what's left. 

They have mine fields of entourages, sycophants, financial planners, extended family members, etc., all trying to break off a piece of that money.  The landscape is littered with former players who end up with nothing, because they couldn't manage their money, didn't have the self-discipline to live small with their eyes on preserving what they earned.  The buying sprees.  The clubbing.  Bar keep, Remy Martin for everyone.  Everyone's your friend. Until the money's gone.  Or until you wise up.   Oh, wait, there's the phone again.  Some guy I hardly know keeps calling me about investing in a new tech start up company. 

they are allowed to have another job after retirement. With the hours they keep for footballing there's plenty of time for study or to learn a trade