The unpopular football opinion thread

[The College Dropout]

Why should the main attractions of a multi billion pound industry become plumbers once it’s over?

 

You wouldn’t expect Tom Cruise to become a plumber if nobody wants to pay him to act anymore.

 

There’s no business or economic logic to footballers not earning astronomical wages. Their skill sets are valuable (people pay to see stars in person, on tv, shirts and other content) and rare.  And they’re done it in a sport where the entry barriers are low and most men have had a fair shot to become one.

 

No one goes on about F1 salaries.  A lot more glamorous sport with much higher barriers to get involved.

[The College Dropout]

That's another thing I dislike. The seeming disdain fans and other people in football have for "player power".

 

Football is one of the few lines of work where someone taking their own careers into their hands is frowned upon.

 

I think boycotting your team and refusing to play is totally unacceptable and disgusting. But I have no problem with players forcing moves behind the scenes while doing their job well on it.

 

Football is a fickle game. A couple big injuries and you're earning power could drop drastically. I have no problem with players chasing a big paycheque as long as they give their all in training and on the field.

 

If the players don't get it, some fat b****** in an office would get it instead.

 

The average salary is £26000ish, anybody who is earning that per week, can f*** off with the short career argument. You only need a year to earn more than the average person earns in a lifetime.

 

Also they don't take their careers into their own hands, they have agents.

 

Totally agree. They earn more than most of us will make in a lifetime in a couple of years.

 

The tiniest, tiniest bit of financial common sense, not extensive wealth management, but basic common sense will see them right in retirement for the rest of their lives. No one is forcing players to waste their money on tasteless guilded turds and other bullshit.

 

Any footballer who goes bankrupt deserves all they get. After all, nothing is stopping them from getting a proper job like the fans who fork out a fortune to pay their wages.

 

Zero sympathy if they waste their money and have to get a job like the rest of us.

 

Football is one of few professions where for some reason, trying to increase your income is frowned upon. I think it's perhaps jealousy and that people don't consider it a real job. If you saw a former Premier League footballer working a regular job you would probably get schadenfreude.

 

 

Footballers' salaries aren't decided based on your own situation. You haven't done them any favours. You have a rate based on your industry and location. Brad Pitt has his. Footballers have theirs.

 

Football is a billion-pound industry. The players, at the least, deserve to be as rich as possible.

 

£26k in a year puts you in the top 1% of the world in terms of income. In a 2 parent household, it's enough to live on. I'm not going to sit here and deride you for wanting to earn more.

 

And the agent works on behalf of the player. The player is the agents boss. The agent can be fired. Ultimately, players make the final decisions. Sure agents are hugely influential.

 

I don't like how footballers wages in the UK are (a) not public domain - not that we have a right to know, it's just interesting and (b) why it's often calculated in weekly pay. Who thinks of their wage/contract/salary in terms of weeks? Unless you are paid by the day / hour?

 

When I played FM I would switch the wages to a year. A £100k p/w contract was something like £5.1m a year. 3 year deal, £15m. Can quickly look at the other finances to decide whether it was worth it or not. Much easier to compare to other players too.

 

Because for the vast majority, the weekly pay rate was somewhat relatable, but now even that's getting out of hand. We might begin to see pay by day soon enough tbh.

 

Why is weekly more relatable? Monthly I would understand. Don't most people look at their income from a yearly perspective?

 

Maybe he means in the sense that a weekly wage of £50k doesn't immediately look as obscene to the eye as £200k a month? Hence the weekly amount getting out of hand comment.

 

I mean from the point of view that your average Joe can grasp what 20,25 or even 50k actually means. A year's worth of work, or x amount to spend a month on that wage after bills. What is 1m to someone who earns 30k a year?

 

But now as weekly wages are going beyond 300k, I was making the point that maybe we'd see these amounts referenced as 40,45k a day.

 

Disgusting any way its looked at tho tbh.

 

Ok I understand it now. I don't understand what footballers' wages have to do with your own - but ok, I understand the point.

 

Why is it disgusting?

 

Man United turnover 650m euros per year. Their biggest earner makes about 25m per year. For 4 years before he's replaced with someone younger.

 

Out of interest, what is your take on CEOs who take home obscene wages?

 

It’s nowt to do with footballers wages. 

 

I think it’s disgusting that CEOs can earn millions while other employees on their payroll can barely make a living.

 

Football is one of the few professions where the average revenue Generating employee (first team player) might outearn directors and such.  And i don’t think that’s a bad thing at all

[morla84]

Why should the main attractions of a multi billion pound industry become plumbers once it’s over?

 

You wouldn’t expect Tom Cruise to become a plumber if nobody wants to pay him to act anymore.

Such a daft argument. Pro Gymnast careers are over in their early 20s, but you don't expect them to get paid millions each week to compensate. Wages are relative to the money in the sport, not the length of their professional careers.

[morla84]

Forget about plumbers man, I meant for lower league players I'm not expecting David Ginola to come and fix my boiler. There's countless different high profile careers and investments they can make once they finish playing football. Clubs don't owe them any extra money because they have a 10-20 year career. If anything they should give them training for skills to use when changing careers (coaching, physio, presenter, commentator, whatever)

[Wilson]

Mike Ashley is a nice guy

[Crumpy Gunt]

Mike Ashley is a nice guy

His mother loves him.....

 

Apparently.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Mike Ashley is a nice guy

 

Did he just give you a massive new contract as well?

[The College Dropout]

Why should the main attractions of a multi billion pound industry become plumbers once it’s over?

 

You wouldn’t expect Tom Cruise to become a plumber if nobody wants to pay him to act anymore.

Such a daft argument. Pro Gymnast careers are over in their early 20s, but you don't expect them to get paid millions each week to compensate. Wages are relative to the money in the sport, not the length of their professional careers.

]]Eh?

 

I just said:

"Why should the main attractions of a multi billion pound industry become plumbers once it’s over?"

 

 

You've proved my point.

 

Short career element is more to do with the fact., players can't waste 3-4 years of their careers being underpaid in their primes. Usually a 7 year window at their peak. I can't blame them for ensuring they get paid as much as possible. Most players don't actually choose to solely focus on that either otherwise more would go to China in their primes or similar. It's usually a mix of sporting ambition and salary.

[morla84]

I can't blame anyone for wanting the most attractive salary available irrespective of the length of their particular career.

[Yorkie]

Since I appear to be spending the evening talking about those whose arses I believe radiate sunlight, here's George Caulkin on the prospect of that European Super League. He makes it sound heavenly, tbh:

 

"The Premier League is a form of tyranny, because if you're in the bottom two thirds, you're paralysed by fear: the fear of missing out. It means that the football itself is, by and large, pretty unattractive.

 

At the same time, how can it be that the play-off match to get into the PL can be the richest game in our sport? Not the Champions League final, not the FA Cup final, but the game between the teams who finished 3rd and 6th in the second division.

 

What would I do? I'd massively redistribute wealth between the divisions, and even in the Premier League, to try and alleviate against this fear.

 

Is that not why the Premier League went off on its own in the first place? Yeah, it did, to satiate the greed of the leading clubs. Let them go. Let them go and play each other every week. Let's see how much fun that is.

 

One of the most enjoyable parts of my job in the last few years has been seeing Newcastle go down, and then understand that winning is actually good. It doesn't matter, so much, who you play against. And equally Sunderland in League 1; they're diminished as a football club but they're also enhanced, because they've remembered that there's more to life than just grimly hanging on every season."

 

(from The Times/The Game Football podcast)

[AyeDubbleYoo]

That last paragraph is absolutely right, it shouldn’t really matter which division you’re in. As long as you’re trying to progress.

 

I really think we need US-style spending and salary caps to somehow level the playing field.

 

It’s not a sport at the moment, it’s a competition for who has the best billionaire.

[leffe186]

That last paragraph is absolutely right, it shouldn’t really matter which division you’re in. As long as you’re trying to progress.

 

I really think we need US-style spending and salary caps to somehow level the playing field.

 

It’s not a sport at the moment, it’s a competition for who has the best billionaire.

 

I think that’s my bat-signal to come in and comment on money in football again (although since i’m Spurs, maybe it should be cock-signal?).

 

There was someone who wrote in on the BBC after the Wolves match saying “that’s the difference between Liverpool and Spurs, Liverpool wouldn’t lose to Wolves” or some such. Well sure, I guess, but the real difference between Liverpool and Spurs comes down to money. Keeper a bit iffy? Buy a new one for 60M+. Lacking energy in midfield? Buy somebody else for 40M. Hang on, he’s not all that. Buy a new guy for 60M. We’re a bit dodgy at the back? Buy a guy for 80M. And this is Liverpool, not the true comedy acts of Man City or Chelsea.

 

It’s just so weird being a football fan of any club outside the top table - which apparently definitively includes us as we’re not in that group invited to be founder members of this European League. There is just no way I can take criticism from any fan of the elite seriously. Sooner or later, money will out, and everything else just seems like pissing in the wind. I’m lucky enough to be in the US now, and American Football feels like a breath of fresh air (not something you’ll often hear over here). The idea that competitive balance on the pitch is primarily a function of player selection and coaching is like heaven. They’ve already managed to fuck up competitive balance in baseball though.

 

I just feel sad. I still get childlike joy when we win, and childish depression when we lose (avoided football completely between Wolves and Cardiff - thank God for the Cleveland Browns, something else you don’t often hear over here). I should grow out of it, but it’s more than the club to me, it’s the community I grew up in and with - like Sifu. It’s just harder and harder to take. Spurs fans have been blessed in recent years, but even if we somehow cross that bridge to the stars something has been irrevocably lost.

[Guest]

People being precious over this ‘United’ thing the last couple of days. The whole uproar over the Sky caption ffs. They always just use ‘Newcastle’ when advertising a match and they have to use ‘United’ to differentiate from Manchester City.

 

 

[Guest firetotheworks]

It's nothing to do with differentiating from Man City tbf, it's just how they're known as a brand. Same with Bayern.

[geordiedean]

It's nothing to do with differentiating from Man City tbf, it's just how they're known as a brand. Same with Bayern.

 

Just the same as inter and AC too

[Wullie]

It's nothing like Bayern, there aren't any other German clubs known as Bayern.

[Guest neesy111]

If Manchester had 1 team, then people would refer them as Manchester.

[Guest]

It's nothing to do with differentiating from Man City tbf, it's just how they're known as a brand. Same with Bayern.

 

I’m meaning the caption where it’s ‘Newcastle v Manchester Utd’. ‘United’ is branding but on the Sky caption it’s just to differentiate.

 

Similar to this on the Premier League site involving us and Sheff Utd.

 

https://www.premierleague.com/news/657687

 

 

I wonder if Real Betis fans kick up a fuss when Real Madrid get called, ‘Real’.

[Guest firetotheworks]

If Manchester had 1 team, then people would refer them as Manchester.

 

Nah, they were referred to as United back when both Sheffield clubs were in the Premier League and/or when Man City were in League One and no differentiation was needed. They're still called United when they're playing against other teams called United. The intention might have been to differentiate originally but it hasn't been for the vast majority of the Premier League era, it's part of their brand. If differentiation is the aim then calling them United when they're playing us, WHU, Leeds etc is more confusing and is inconsistent.

[Guest firetotheworks]

It's nothing like Bayern, there aren't any other German clubs known as Bayern.

 

Aye, I've fucked up there. Just asked my Kaiserslautern mate that I thought told me this and I've mixed up two conversation about how it's weird that RB Leipzig couldn't include Red Bull because of branding, despite Bayer Leverkusen being allowed, then about how Real Madrid are referred to as Real despite there being loads of other Reals. It's not even Bayern either ffs.

[Disco]

Real Madrid aren't referred to in Spain as Real though. Real Sociedad are 'La Real'.

 

Likewise Inter and 'AC'. No-one in Italy adds the Milan suffix to Inter or the AC prefix to Milan.

[Guest firetotheworks]

It's nothing to do with differentiating from Man City tbf, it's just how they're known as a brand. Same with Bayern.

 

I’m meaning the caption where it’s ‘Newcastle v Manchester Utd’. ‘United’ is branding but on the Sky caption it’s just to differentiate.

 

Similar to this on the Premier League site involving us and Sheff Utd.

 

https://www.premierleague.com/news/657687

 

 

I wonder if Real Betis fans kick up a fuss when Real Madrid get called, ‘Real’.

 

Ah I get you.

 

VI will probably know better, but I'd be surprised if it didn't annoy at least some Betis, Majorca, Sociedad etc fans that Real Madrid are the only team referred to as Real globally.

[Guest neesy111]

You are pedantic as they come KI.

[Stifler]

Just because other clubs do it it doesn’t make it right. The point is that the media are now going out of their way to call Manchester United ‘United’. On the graphics there are capable of naming them Manchester United and us as Newcastle United, yet they never do. Even if space was limited, simply referring to them as Man Utd would be perfectly acceptable. In the past though I have seen us not only have the ‘United’ removed, but also have our name abbreviated to something like N’cstle and such.

Commentary is even worse, esecpailly for the fans of the other club called United as they can easily interperate things happening the wrong way round.

It’s all the more worse when Man Utd have less legitimacy to call themselves United like we or other clubs do. Surely the name has to have meaning and simply can’t be applied to whoever is more successful.

[Guest neesy111]

The only time I've been annoyed is when Shearer says it, he should know better.  Not bothered about rest of the media, man utd are the biggest football club in the world so they will always get more coverage etc and it's been attached to them.