I learn tonight that Columbian striker Radamel Falcao will be paid £364k a week at Manchester United.
It’s a free country, if you can afford it, but it shows the gulf that has opened up in ‘English’ football.
My two sons played in youth football for many years, often on mud heaps and almost always without so much as a changing room. The kit and equipment was paid for by parents and coaches, as were the pitches. In short, facilities were, and remain, pitiful.
Since the Premier League was formed, money has flowed to the top of the game, at the expense not just of grassroots football but also lower league football. The TV money now runs into billions, some clubs are owned by foreign multi-billionaires and ticket prices are extortionate, even at lower levels of the game.
A lot of this money has flowed abroad too as the top clubs pack their squads with top overseas stars. Managers, under pressure to win, always choose the easy way of buying ready made talent than developing home grown players.
Falcao’s wages are incredible though and represent the wage bill of Bristol Rovers’ entire squad in less than three weeks!
He is, of course, not alone. It is believed Ya Ya Toure ‘earns’ £250k per week net so that can’t be far off Falcao’s wage.
We accept, and through our votes condone, a society which offers such vast discrepancies between what the top players earn and the rest of us. In a time of austerity where many hardworking people use food banks, the Premier League spends more than ever in transfers and wages. Living standards fall and yet the rich get richer.
I honestly feel that the Premier League by its wealth and greed is killing our game. It funnels away more of the cash and invests precious little into the lower reaches. The suits can point out some charitable donations but they are but token gestures.
We have accepted it by our Sky subscriptions, by buying the replica shirts and by paying the rip off ticket prices.
But the dream of a small club like mine, Bristol Rovers, has all but gone. We can dream one day of maybe reaching the Championship and if we triple our gates, staying there, but the reality is probably League One where but for frightful mismanagement we normally live.
Good luck to Falcao. I don’t begrudge him following the money – who wouldn’t? – but the destruction of our national game at all levels is accelerating and paying players a weekly wage of what it takes a person on the average wage 14 years to earn is one good reason why.
