With nine out of 10 football fans now thinking players are overpaid, are the economics of football about to reach a tipping point? asks Graham Snowdon
In some regards, it's hard to feel too surprised by a new Virgin Money survey revealing that nine out of 10 football supporters apparently think players are overpaid and should either take a pay cut or a wage freeze. After all, according to accountants Deloitte, Premier League footballers now earn an average of around �33,000 a week.
Compare this with the UK's gross annual median salary of �26,000. Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez, two of the highest paid players in the Premier League, each reportedly earn more than that in a day. Even Aston Villa's new signing Darren Bent is now reportedly on �70,000 a week which, if those seven days constituted all the work he could be bothered to do in a year, would still position him comfortably among the top 5% of the UK's best-paid workers.
It all seems a far cry from when, almost 50 years ago to the day, the then-chairman of the Professional Footballers' Association Jimmy Hill successfully lobbied for the abolition of the wage cap on footballers' pay, enabling Fulham's Johnny Haynes to become the first player to earn over �100 a week.
Fans' attitudes to footballers' pay are more difficult to fathom in other ways, though. Only 13% of the 4,150 football fans surveyed in the Virgin Money Football Fans Inflation Index thought it right that players' wages should be dictated by the market, yet presumably these are the very same fans who are now prepared, according to the survey, to fork out the average matchday price of �101.67 per head.
Then there is the cost of television subscriptions to Sky Sports and ESPN, the real drivers behind hyper-inflation of footballers' wages. A fascinating graphic on the Sporting Intelligence website shows how wage inflation in football remained comparatively flat until 1993, when BSkyB first bought into top flight football.
Of course there is the entirely reasonable argument that television money has improved the game as an entertainment spectacle beyond all comparison. Watching a video of Leeds United's 1992 title-winning season recently (OK, it was a quiet night), I couldn't help but notice the banks of empty terracing at an away game at Old Trafford, a practically unthinkable occurrence now.
Sometimes though, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that footballers' wages have always been, and continue to be, funded from the pockets of ordinary fans, be it through the turnstiles,subscriptions, shirt sales or whatever. Until now, it seems to have been a contradiction that fans have been happy to ignore. But with the price of consumer goods rising three times faster than wages, the economy looking perilous and 87% of fans in agreement that players are overpaid, are the economics of football about to reach a tipping point? This could be the year we find out.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/blog/2011/jan/25/wayne-rooney-fans-turnstiles
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