Football News: Is there more to Professional Football than kicking a ball?

Image from: worldartsme.com

Professional football is a commitment to dieting, training, travelling, being harassed by the press and the public, missing family time, helping in the local community, charity work etc. for about 30 years. From when you first get into an academy, to the day you retire from the sport.

They are celebrities, role models, athletes, ambassadors and much more. Football might be fun for us casuals, but you'd find it less fun if you were getting up at 5am on Christmas Day to force feed yourself pasta for breakfast, go to the gym, followed by training, then popping to the local children's hospital to fulfil your other obligations, getting home just in time to eat dinner with your kids, just so that you can spend boxing day on a coach across the country, then getting booed for 90 minutes in the freezing rain, and then returning home to find you've been tweeted death threats by the people you just gave up your Christmas to entertain.

It really annoys me when people say "they just kick a ball", they don't. They deal with intense pressure and sacrifice for the best years of their life, as well as their long term health, all to make your weekend more fun. They are hugely under appreciated because of jealousy. I never hear people getting at Robbie Williams or Tom Cruise? They are far richer than footballers but for some reason, footballers are the only celebrities who get targeted; it baffles me. It is considered acceptable to send death threats to a footballer who plays poorly, but not to a musician if they make a bad song, or an actor who makes a bad film.

You get what you are worth in this world. Football is a multi-billion pound industry and the key component are the players. Liverpool supporters don't pay higher ticket prices than Tranmere fans because Anfield has a decent pie. You pay to see the best players in the world at the highest level. Considering they are the main selling point of such a cash rich industry, and they are the ones who take the main bulk of the physical and mental stresses and strains, it is fair to say they deserve a fair distribution of the profits that are made off the back of their talents.

The best players also attract bigger sponsorship deals and invariably contribute to more success which brings in more winnings. The alternative is we pay players a normal wage and let the CEO's and directors pocket an extra £100 million a year between them like in all the capitalist industries where wealth is not distribute fairly.

In principal, doctors and soldiers deserve more for sure, but they are not actually worth more. The NHS runs at huge losses already that is subsidised by the tax payer, and the military is almost entirely a non-profit organisation. To pay them more, would require an astronomical tax hike. To put them in line with celebrities, I'd make a completely finger in the air guess that everyone would need to pay at least 80% tax, basic rate. It is impractical and impossible. Footballers earn more because they are worth more. They definitely do not deserve more, but life isn't fair all the time. I wish I'd been born with a talent that could make me a fortune, but I won't begrudge others for earning more than me.

If anybody is still not happy with what the players earn, stop buying tickets, stop buying merchandise, stop subscribing to sports channels etc. We are putting the money into the industry that makes these guys rich, and then hilariously moaning that they are rich. I'd rather the money be split between 60-100 players and coaches who probably do get paid more than they deserve in principal, than all end up in the boards pocket who definitely get more than they deserve for pen pushing behind closed doors.

There will always be exceptions who don't work hard or give back to the fans, but please, berate those individuals and don't generalise all players. Look at what some of them have given back to society, and the entertainment they've provided to have depression by 25, dodgy joints by 35 and Alzheimer's by 55. I fully get that there are others who deserve more, but in a capitalist world where most industries keep all the money for the select few, let's not hammer one of the only industries that actually pay people what they are worth to the business!

Written by Adam Jones March 29 2018 20:36:37