Footballers' pay

[Oakeshott]

"Manchester United fear they will not be able to sell England defender Harry Maguire, 30, this summer due to his wages, which are believed to be more than £200,000-a-week." (Football Insider)

From the BBC website football "gossip" section.

I've no idea how reliable the source, Football Insider, is, but is that is anything like right, Man United's fears are surely justified.

If we had M now, would he make our team, with Diop and Ream playing so well? If they had to pay the full £200,000, or even half if Man U cut their losses and subsidised, surely no Premier club would be interested.

[H4usuallysitting]

Give the people at Forest a call....they haven't signed anybody this week

[sunburywhite]

They created the problem by agreeing to pay that in the first place

[filham]

Every time I read about footballers wages I think perhaps it is time for us to boycott professional football.
There really is no way these figures can be justified.

[alfie]

Every time I read about footballers wages I think perhaps it is time for us to boycott professional football.
There really is no way these figures can be justified.

Players like Beckham & Ronaldo made millions for their clubs just on shirt sales, there is a discussion on whether they should not benefit from that income, personally maybe so, but when you have teenagers getting paid £10,000 a week then I feel it is very wrong.

[Ruislip White]

Footballer's (and everyone else) should be able to earn whatever someone is willing to pay them.
A football earning 100k plus a week has no impact on my life or standard of living, other than making me feel a touch envious occasionally..  In fact, if a footballer like Maguire earns 200k per week, it means that he is paying 90k a week in tax for important services. 

[Jamie88]

Footballer's (and everyone else) should be able to earn whatever someone is willing to pay them.
A football earning 100k plus a week has no impact on my life or standard of living, other than making me feel a touch envious occasionally..  In fact, if a footballer like Maguire earns 200k per week, it means that he is paying 90k a week in tax for important services. 

Exactly the way I feel about it

[alfie]

Footballer's (and everyone else) should be able to earn whatever someone is willing to pay them.
A football earning 100k plus a week has no impact on my life or standard of living, other than making me feel a touch envious occasionally..  In fact, if a footballer like Maguire earns 200k per week, it means that he is paying 90k a week in tax for important services.

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but as I say when you have a young kid who has achieved nothing getting paid that sort of money for kicking a ball around is wrong, when you have nurses working all sorts of unsociable hours trying to save lives are struggling to just exist.

[Somerset Fulham]

The very definition of capitalist market forces at play there.

I've no problem with it and if businesses get it wrong by overpaying for a resource then they should also suffer any consequences that go with it.

[Gloucester White]

Footballer's (and everyone else) should be able to earn whatever someone is willing to pay them.
A football earning 100k plus a week has no impact on my life or standard of living, other than making me feel a touch envious occasionally..  In fact, if a footballer like Maguire earns 200k per week, it means that he is paying 90k a week in tax for important services. 

Exactly the way I feel about it

No, it doesn't mean the player is paying that much in tax. Footballers have special pension arrangements because their careers are comparatively short, so, if the player has any sense, most of his pay will go into his pension pot and that amount will not be subject to tax.

[Somerset Fulham]

I'm not sure that the pension thing is still the case. 

Retirement age is now 55 (it used to be 35) and unless I am completely unaware of an exemption then certainly Premier League players will be subject to the tapered Annual Allowance, employer contributions notwithstanding.

[Ruislip White]

Footballer's (and everyone else) should be able to earn whatever someone is willing to pay them.
A football earning 100k plus a week has no impact on my life or standard of living, other than making me feel a touch envious occasionally..  In fact, if a footballer like Maguire earns 200k per week, it means that he is paying 90k a week in tax for important services. 

Exactly the way I feel about it

No, it doesn't mean the player is paying that much in tax. Footballers have special pension arrangements because their careers are comparatively short, so, if the player has any sense, most of his pay will go into his pension pot and that amount will not be subject to tax.

I work in wealth management and have covered a number of footballers over years.  Doesn't work that  way...

[WindyCity]

Footballer's (and everyone else) should be able to earn whatever someone is willing to pay them.

Bingo!!

Anybody in any field of work.  Professional athletes, in any sport, deserve the dollars someone willing to pay.  Whatever the market bears.  What they do is unique and only a select few on the planet can gain employ with top teams in any sport.

[filham]

Footballer's (and everyone else) should be able to earn whatever someone is willing to pay them.
A football earning 100k plus a week has no impact on my life or standard of living, other than making me feel a touch envious occasionally..  In fact, if a footballer like Maguire earns 200k per week, it means that he is paying 90k a week in tax for important services. 

Exactly the way I feel about it

Try telling that to the nurse who has just come off a busy 12 hour night shift in casualty at 8am on a Sunday morning.

[alfie]

Footballer's (and everyone else) should be able to earn whatever someone is willing to pay them.
A football earning 100k plus a week has no impact on my life or standard of living, other than making me feel a touch envious occasionally..  In fact, if a footballer like Maguire earns 200k per week, it means that he is paying 90k a week in tax for important services. 

Exactly the way I feel about it

Try telling that to the nurse who has just come off a busy 12 hour night shift in casualty at 8am on a Sunday morning.

:plus one:

[Plodder]

Every time I read about footballers wages I think perhaps it is time for us to boycott professional football.
There really is no way these figures can be justified.

I agree, and to some extent, I have boycotted professional football.  I used to be a season ticket holder from the 1970s to the mid 1990s, but financial and family commitments meant I could not go for many years.  With my children now grown up, I probably could afford a season ticket (and I am strongly tempted), but I am unwilling to contribute a sizeable sum of my income to the outlandish amounts being paid to those professionally involved in the game, whether players, managers, agents or in the media. There is a list as long as your arm of occupations (nurses, sewage workers, mechanics, supermarket workers, agricultural labourers etc.) where the difference between their pay and that of professional footballers is a sign that market forces don't always produce a fair or desirable outcome.  There may be no obvious alternative to the market, but I still want to see a rebalancing of wages, and even if it is just a gesture to myself of "virtue signalling", I don't want my money to go towards perpetuating that.  Everyone else is free to make the same choice or a different one, but I hope that collectively as a society, we start thinking about what we value, and how much we value it at.

[bobbo]

Every time I read about footballers wages I think perhaps it is time for us to boycott professional football.
There really is no way these figures can be justified.

OMG I so agree. Actually been thinking about it quite seriously .

[SG]

Footballer's (and everyone else) should be able to earn whatever someone is willing to pay them.
A football earning 100k plus a week has no impact on my life or standard of living, other than making me feel a touch envious occasionally..  In fact, if a footballer like Maguire earns 200k per week, it means that he is paying 90k a week in tax for important services. 

Exactly the way I feel about it

Try telling that to the nurse who has just come off a busy 12 hour night shift in casualty at 8am on a Sunday morning.

:plus one:

With respect this is illogical. There are some 200 British footballers earning this level of income out of a population of what 50 million UK adults. People with these skill levels are extremely rare and it's nigh on impossible to attain this level hence the elevated pay level. Within reason any person can be a nurse if they wish and the pay compared to a footballer reflects this. So comparing the two is illogical in my opinion of course

[Ruislip White]

Footballer's (and everyone else) should be able to earn whatever someone is willing to pay them.
A football earning 100k plus a week has no impact on my life or standard of living, other than making me feel a touch envious occasionally..  In fact, if a footballer like Maguire earns 200k per week, it means that he is paying 90k a week in tax for important services. 

Exactly the way I feel about it

Try telling that to the nurse who has just come off a busy 12 hour night shift in casualty at 8am on a Sunday morning.

:plus one:

With respect this is illogical. There are some 200 British footballers earning this level of income out of a population of what 50 million UK adults. People with these skill levels are extremely rare and it's nigh on impossible to attain this level hence the elevated pay level. Within reason any person can be a nurse if they wish and the pay compared to a footballer reflects this. So comparing the two is illogical in my opinion of course

We can all feel sympathetic for nurses, teachers and countless other essential hard-working professionals.  How much footballers earn won't change any of their circumstances, unless Shahid Khan decides to not buy a centre forward in the next window and give that money directly to a nurse.
You can control how equal people's pay is, but would probably have to move to a country like China to see that happen, rather than live in a free market.
If we as fans stopped watching, wages would come down.  But we love it, and while we do footballers will make loads more than the average worker.  Happy to benefit from the entertainment and their taxes.