Premier League Footballers Are Underpaid

This post on Premier League Footballers being underpaid was originally written and published on 09/03/2008 on my old site, ‘The God Is You’, and may conflict with my current philosophy.

I BET THAT shocked you! English Premier League footballers, the target of so much jealousy and vitriol because of their ’spiralling’ wages – and I’m telling you they’re underpaid? That does it! You’re never going to read my stuff again, right?

Much has been said about there being too much money in football, or about the exaggerated salaries of English Premier League footballers and those of the other big European leagues. The reason for the negativity is unclear, although the cries of ‘inflated contracts, undeserved fast cars and mindless celebrity’ bear the hallmark of an anti-capitalist philosophy. Read this – it’s important…

Where Is All That Money Coming From?

But the outspoken commentators and all-round vilifiers of top-flight footballers have so far failed to ask the question: Where is all this money coming from? And by failing to ask the question, they have failed to learn the answer: From their own pockets – of their own volition.

Yesterday, Sunday 8th March, I travelled to Old Trafford, Manchester, to see my team, Manchester United play an FA Cup game. Six hours there, six hours back, in the pouring rain, to see my team get beaten by, ironically my local team – Portsmouth. Enough about that. But I still saw men do things with a football that I could only fantasise about doing – things that they have worked years to be able to do. But as I scanned the panorama that was to embrace me for the next ninety minutes, the answer to the money was everywhere I looked.

A Cast Of Thousands

Seventy six thousand ticket-holders, young and old, all dressed in their club’s replica shirts, carrying bags of gladly-paid-for merchandise, hats sporting the club crests, jackets, scarves, footwear, match day programmes, magazines, brochures, advertising hoardings, television cameras broadcasting the game to millions of people worldwide. For ONE match.

People will lament how someone can get paid such a lot of money for kicking a pigskin around the park, but, in reality, it’s just another form of entertainment. It’s something to do after a hard day’s work, like having a drink down the pub, watching a film at the cinema, or going to the opera. Your footballers are your heroes. They’re inspiring and inspirational, like WAR heroes – they fight for something you believe in – your football team.

It’s Your Fault – Want To Know Why?

It’s for this reason that a man – like myself – is compelled to put his hand in his pocket and hand over his hard-earned money to the football club. It is because of people like these – including myself – that there is so much money in football. It starts with us. If we didn’t put our hand into our pocket, there would NOT be the money in football that there is, since nobody would be spending any money. Football is no different than any other profession in this respect.

The marketplace determines the cost of a product or service (in this case, a football team), the price that the consumer (fan) is willing to pay, and the wage of the producer (footballer). All are related to one another. One factor cannot change independently of another without adversely affecting the others.

People complain about the cost of tickets to the game (to use this as an example), yet Premier League stadiums are sold out week-after-week. The stadiums are full because thousands of people have decided – of their own choice – that the ticket price fairly reflects the value of the experience. If the value of the experience were to decline – if the football team were to underperform, for instance – the tickets would stop selling.

The club would be forced to reduce ticket prices in accordance with the lower value performances, and the stadium would sell out, again. Lower ticket prices would mean lower profits, which would mean lower wages. The adverse is also true. Which is why players from the best teams drive Aston Martins. Just another example of the (nearly) free market economy, my friend.

It’s All About The Money, Baby! But Is It, Really..?

Another barb thrown by the tongue of the Premier League haters is that footballers are only playing the game for money, and that if they truly loved the game, they’d play for free. This comment is so naive it worries me of the sanity of those that utter it.

Footballers are no different to any other high-paid professional – doctor, film star, therapist: They do what they do because, at some point in their life, they realised they enjoyed doing it, and they strove to become great at it. Their service is in high demand, and people are willing to pay good money for it – with wages being based on ability, which equals the value they offer. The argument is continued with moans such as, “Why, then, do the best players always go where the money is? The Uniteds, Chelseas, Milans and Madrids?”

If you were an architect, wouldn’t you want to ply your trade with the best in town? And do I have to ask the question, which is the better team – Manchester United or Macclesfield Town? I can answer that for you. Objectively, United are the better team. They’re leagues apart. Literally. You might say that the smaller teams sometimes play with more passion. But passion won’t win a bean without ability. Passion alone doesn’t win a football match, a war, or even an argument. Ability wins football matches, wars AND arguments. Passion, of course, can tip you over the edge.

These are the best teams, and the money they generate is the result of the market compensating them for their superior skill level – the reason for that being the collective ability of their individual players.

Do You Want To Know Why Premier League Footballers Are Underpaid?

So why did I say that Premier League footballers are underpaid? Well, like all tax payers, they’re forced to hand over a portion of their income to the government for services they likely didn’t ask for – some of which include paying for the work-shy demographic to sit in front of the television they paid for, on the couch they paid for, for getting lunch-drunk on the beer they paid for, at the home paid for by, yet again, Mr Premier League Footballer, Esquire.

Well, we can ALL empathise with footballers on this point – all of us producers, that is. And if wage caps were ever introduced, they’d be underpaid further, still, since the capping of a salary is to negate the market value of the footballer, funnelling the money to another area of the market that wouldn’t deserve it. Yet another example of the earned falling into the hands of the unearning.

But What About Nurses?

I can already here some of the more socialistic readers wail, as they dust-off the popcorn after watching the latest millionaire-Tom Cruise, sky-high-contract-paying blockbuster, “But football is hardly a noble profession! Teachers/nurses/social workers should be paid THEIR kind of wages!” But I ask you, when was the last time you tuned-in to watch the Premier League Nurses top of the table clash at the seventy thousand, sell-out Nurse Stadium, on premium-pay television, wearing your replica Nurses United shirt?

I’m not knocking these professions – funnily enough, all public sector jobs – for their low wage level. If anything, these professions are poor examples to use since salaries in these fields are not set according to the market but, instead, are based on a government economic policy of trying to appease as many people as possible in an effort to gain more votes to feed their power-hunger. Were these jobs equivalently represented in the private sector, the wages may – and probably would – be higher than they are, now. But that’s a whole other article.

And all this before we’ve even thrown reputedly ‘greedy, extortionate’ football agents into the mix. Not to go deep into this one, here – a topic of much, recent debate – but guess what: Even with football agents operating, top footballers are still playing football for top football clubs and billions worldwide are still paying to watch it. Go figure (?)

Why, You Hypocrite!

If you really do have a problem with top footballer’s wages, take a long, good hard look in the mirror, my friend. You are a walking, talking specimen of that which you denouncing: Capitalism and the free market economy. The market is not cheatable; it is a mirror that clearly reflects value: sought and offered. Look into that mirror. Observe the jeans you wear, the shirt on your back, the ring on your finger, the phone in your pocket. Who forced you to dress in this garb?

You see, along every step of the way lies a choice made by an individual. A footballer. A fan. An agent. A football club owner. To disparage the market is to defame the individual who made a decision under his own philosophy based on what he wanted at that time AND what was available to him – all by his own free will.

So the next time you denounce footballers for their ‘unearned’ fame and fortune, just remember it’s YOU who’s paying for them to drive that Ferrari. I’m trying to put my team’s weekend loss out of mind until their next game. They’re my heroes, and I hate it when they lose. I pay them to win. This is life. I love life.

To freedom,

Scotty Stevens
The Humanpreneur
"mecum et incipio et finio"

Disclaimer: As per my Terms And Conditions, this post reflects my philosophy at the time of writing, and may not necessarily correlate with my life's outlook as you read it, now.

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