Is a modern player’s wages really that out of the ordinary?

According to the Professional Footballers’ Association, a top England player would have earned a total of around £1,600 a year in wages, bonuses and international match fees in 1957. Nowadays that money is the equivalent of about £75,000, or the amount that many average Premier League players would earn in a week.

Manchester City‘s Yaya Toure is reputed to earn more than £250,000 a week, along with Wayne Rooney and teammate, Carlos Tevez. What’s more, the Ivorian apparently receives £823,000 as a bonus if Manchester City, as it seems they will, qualify for the Champions League this season, and a further £400,000 if they win the competition, plus a £1.65m annual salary for his image rights. Toure is certainly a top-class talent, and has proved an important purchase for the current campaign, but it is worth mentioning that City signed the midfielder following a season in the shadows at Barcelona where he only started 13 games for the Catalans. He has played for the likes of Olympiakos, Monaco and Beveren previously, but is now amongst the highest paid players in not just the Premier League, but Europe.

The consensus opinion has relaxed recently, a contrast to the day when Bryan Robson became the first £1,000 a week footballer in 1981 to the backdrop of public outrage, and extortionate wages are considered an accepted part of the modern, global footballing phenomenon. Football has no wage cap, unlike the wealthiest sports in America, and clubs can pay what they like, buy who they like and sell who they like, which begs the question, how can such excess ever be justified in the name of football?

The counter argument is that the current nature of the sport implies that footballers are entertainers on a similar scale to singers or actors, and are therefore earning legitimate sums when compared with their Hollywood counterparts. In February, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association, Gordon Taylor, defended the size of his union members’ wage packets at a government inquiry in to the running of football. Taylor explained: “The game is about players. It’s the players who people pay to watch. I don’t think anybody goes to see a film and complains about Brad Pitt’s wages, or a potential Oscar winners’ wages, and the same if you go to an Elton John or a Take That concert. I’ve never heard a fan yet say it’s terrible the money they get.”