- Aug 7, 2003
- 8,130
Any chance of keeping the sermonising to political threads?What has happened in football is a mirror of what is happening in wider society (in Britain and elsewhere)
In 1985 the average wage of a footballer in the old first division was £25K a year - two and a half times the average industrial wage. In the old fourth division the average wage was £160 per week - today the average wage is £750 per week.
In 1992 when the PL was established the transfer record was £5.5m - today - we are getting to the point where £100m is not uncommon.
In 1992 the average wage of a PL footballer was £75K a year - John Barnes was the highest paid player on £10K a week - today - the average is £3m a year and some players earn up to £400K a week
In less than 40 years wages in the top division have increased by a factor of more than X100 - while in League 2 the wages have increased by a factor of less than X5. Remember this is the average - there are professional footballers in the UK earning less than £300 a week.
There has been an obscene shift in wealth in football to the top division - and within the top division to the top half a dozen clubs.
The exact same concentration of wealth at the top has occurred in wider society where there has been a massive transfusion of wealth from 99% of the population to the richest 1%. During the pandemic - when millions were on furlough payments - the richest 10 men on the planet doubled their wealth to $1.5trillion. Their wealth increased at a rate of over £12,000 per second. This is all thanks to the policies of the Tories and the Blairites and their equivalent in other countries. It cannot continue - inevitably there will be a major crash and unprecedented upheavals - they don't call the period we are entering the 'Age of Disorder' for nothing.