Footballers wages are subject to heavy scrutiny, especially wages that are paid to footballers that play in the Barclays Premier League and other top leagues such as the Bundesliga (Germany) or La Liga (Spain). Globally, high end professional footballers are paid millions of pounds in wages and many of them receive many forms of extra income, in the form of endorsements and other ventures they may operate.
The reason why their wages subject to much debate is because several people, including past footballers such as Gary Linker, feel that wages are simply too high. They believe that footballers get paid too much money. The question is; are footballers paid too much? In short, no.
Manchester United, this week became the highest valued sports team in the world, valued by Forbes magazine at $3bn (£1.4). If you consider how much revenue that all top football clubs generate in revenue from all avenues, merchandise sales, season ticket sales, television rights, transfers out and so on, these institutions generate millions in revenue. So wages fall into proportion with revenues. A top player at club will be paid more than his peers because his labour is deemed more valuable to his employer. This is often the case in workplaces around the world; wages indicate labour contribution. Moreover, if a top player is being paid >£100,000 per week, it is still insignificant when you consider how much these clubs generate. Furthermore, if you look at the lower divisions, this wage model is place, but wages are significantly less, although it is the same profession, clubs in League 2 do not generate hundreds of millions in revenue, so wages are once again in proportion to club size and revenue generated.
One cannot escape the fact that we are living in times of economic woes, where jobs are increasingly difficult to obtain, so the subject of footballer’s wages is more potent at the moment. However, the more abundant your set of skills, the less you will receive in wages. Hence low skilled jobs are paid accordingly, high skilled jobs treated in the same manner. There are few people in the world that can produce what Leo Messi or Luis Suarez or any top professional can. Their skills are scarce; hence the willingness of football clubs to pay for their respective talents. So when you consider the skills that top footballers have, not many in society can do what they do. I know this may seem difficult to comprehend, especially after watching a lot of ordinary Premier League teams, but even those mediocre players are in a position where (all good fortune aside because this is certainly a factor) their skills are still scarce, even if it may not appear to be the case.
Football is also an extremely short career, when you consider that the current government is looking to increase the working age to sixty-eight and a footballer is considered at veteran at thirty five, it does put into perspective just how short many footballers careers are. From the model professionals, players like Paul Scholes, Jamie Carragher and Ryan Giggs, players who take pride in staying fit and looking to get the most out of the profession, the mean age for retirement in football is 35. This means for around seventeen (from the first professional contract) years’ footballers receive a salary. Seventeen years to be paid potentially millions should be enough to last a lifetime. However, this is clearly subjective, the fact is it is a short career, many players choose to leave football, some stay within, neither are as lucrative. If you were to stretch footballers wages over the span of the average working person, so from eighteen to sixty five, some forty-seven years, then their wages would probably seem a lot less crude and I personally feel they would be treated in a completely different light.
At times, footballers wages do seem like too much, but one must remember that as so long as people keep demanding football, attending games, paying for Sky Sports, buying merchandise and so on, football clubs will continue to generate millions. As so long as clubs generate millions, they’re main staff members will receive their proportionate share.
The Conscience Blog 