"Footballers are overpaid!!!". . . Really?

A recent status from one of my Facebook friends (a female BTW):

A footballer earns £250,000 a week.
A soldier earns £18000 a year.
A footballer gets flicked in the leg and falls over screaming.
A soldier gets his arm blown off and carries on!
A footballer lets us down every year!
A soldier makes us proud every day!!
Post this if you if you think soldiers should get more money than footballers!

I see a lot of these kind of statuses on Facebook. If you have a Facebook account I'm sure you have at some point too (probably more than once). Most seem to be written by the barely literate. Almost always any such tribute to the British armed forces must be scathing about professional footballers and how much they earn. But why? Is it not enough to simply pay tribute to the armed forces and the job that they do without having to denegrate another group?

It's widely acknowledged that top footballers earn a lot of money. The image of them as being spoiled isn't often helped by the way that some of them act on and off the pitch. But why the preoccupation with their earnings? Why are footballers constantly targeted for earning tens (or hundreds) of thousands of pounds per week? It's not like they are the only group who earn over-inflated wages is it? Do you ever hear people coming out of the cinema after watching a Brad Pitt film saying that he didn't deserve to earn £25m for it and how it's terrible how much he got paid when 'regular' folk are paid such a miniscule amount by comparison? Now, you could say that Brad Pitt isn't the best example because he doesn't act like a half-wit on a regular basis but there are actors, musicians and other sports stars who do and get paid such large amounts but are never abused for their wage in comparison to their earnings.

Now, being a footballer is easier than most jobs no question and the pay is potentially great. But I would say that in many ways it is possibly tougher than many jobs in the entertainment industry. Players must keep themselves in tip-top shape, risk injury and have to bite their tongues while receiving all kinds of abuse from neanderthals in the stands. many entertainers are more insulated and have many of their tougher jobs done for them. Not easy by all means, but the point I'm making is that there is a huge number of professions in which the pay is overly-inflated. Football is one of them yes. But why is it always the footballers who receive the abuse? It's pretty cliched and short-sighted IMO. Especially when many footballers don't just go out and get pissed while groping women in nightclubs. There are many others who do a lot of charity work and give back to society. the fact that there are these goons who are constantly ripping on all footballers and their wages (which is their business really) is fucking lame.

I work with people who earn thousands of pounds per day just from speaking to people on the phone or making a few clicks of a mouse - is that splashed all over the media? Not so much....

If I did a job that (in part) generated millions upon millions for my employer - I'd want my piece of the pie. Bottom line.

Footballers get paid so much because usually they end up making that money back for their clubs through trophies, etc. If you pay soldiers £250,000 a week your country will be broke.

I had this exact argument with one of my teachers last year

They are overpaid end of.

Who said that they weren't?

But why does that matter? They are paid what they are worth to the club. The only grievance anyone can have is that maybe football can't afford to keep paying these wages.

Oooh, close thread....

Facebook is full of stupid crap like this.

The two aren't even remotely related. If footballers are paid less will soldiers be paid more? I'd be very surprised if that's how the defence budget is drawn up.

People are starving and skyscrapers are being built. That's the way the world works.

'' 99% of you don't have the guts to repost this '' :rofl:

Singers have to practice and train their vocal cords

Spot on.

Footballers have to make sacrifices as well. They have to train hard, week in, week out, they rarely get to spend time with their family and loved ones, they have to travel all the time and on top of it, thier job is not guarranted as a few bad games and you could see yourself on the transfer list. Everyone has an opportunity cost.

Its a talents that people pay to see! Whos to say Barca fans dont pay to watch the matches just to see Xavi, messi and iniesta!
Messi was on something like £180,000 a week. Nou camp holds over 98 thousand, and a ticket for general seats is 95 euro. Just over 9m a game.

And whos to say that all these fans arent showing up to see Messi alone. 180k from 9m is a fair cut in fairness.

If the money is there, then pay them. Footballers earn what they do because it is viable. The clubs can, obviously, afford it due to advertising revenue, ticketing etc. Governments have to budget for an entire country & as it is, military funding is generally high up on the list.

Twitter? Linkedin, Bebo? :rofl:

Well we can argue as much as we like but the story is they get paid what they get paid. Instead of them buying like 10 cars for themselves why dont they make donations to local and worldwide charities,

Most football players don't earn much. If you're talking about top division players in Britain, Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Portugal and the USA then yes, the average salary is probably 20k a week or so. But the vast majority of players earn absolutely nothing like that. You can't compare Ronaldo to the average soldier, better to compare him to the Chiefs of Staff or whatnot.

Never really thought of it like that, good post.

its simple why footballers get paid disgustingly high wages if the not very bright fans keep spending their hard earned cash on football related items like tickets clothing etc etc then the footballer will always be ridiculously highly paid simples !!