loyalty - the long and short of it

Apologies to those who are already aware of what I'm about to post, but it seems that some are not. I barely post on here, I mostly just read but for once I have something to say. This is not a rant. I'm not trying to wind people up. I'm not fishing for an argument. Just expressing a view.

Ever since the game turned professional the players have been just that - professionals. In it for as much money as they can get...and who can blame them? They're professionals, doing a job for money. No point moaning about loyalty because it just doesn't exist. If someone offered me more money to do the same job as I currently do, I'd do it without a second's hesitation. It's a job.

It's part of the reason I barely go and watch Tarn any more, or any professional match for that matter. I'd sooner shell out for a nice pair of boots and shin pads and turn out for Sunday League every week than stump up to watch someone else earn thousands for doing the same thing at a higher standard. Any enjoyment I get out of them winning is vicarious. I haven't done anything towards the victory - likewise I'm blameless if they lose. On Sundays if we win, or I score, I actually have something to feel proud about. Something that the team and I, myself, have achieved, purely for the enjoyment of it, not for thousands of pounds.

The game's professional now and people need to realise it. Players are in the game for a relatively short period of time and are in it to make as much money as they can before they're sent to the knacker's yard. Point is, if you're looking for loyalty from players you won't find it - but don't be suprised by this.

On a side note, I believe that the ever increasing realisation of this fact is contributing heavily to widening gap between the finances of the Premier League and Football League clubs. People are realising what's important. Food on the table or contributing to someone else's massive wage every week.

If the players did a weeks work like you or me, THEN turned up on a Saturday for free or even expenses, and played their hearts out, I'd feel much more inclined to go and cheer them on, as I'd feel as though they were actually playing for the club and the town. As it is, they can play their hearts out, but it's for themselves and their own families and that's fair enough.

 

Well said! Of course it feels bad when we lose a player to another club that can afford to pay bigger wages, but you just got to accept the fact that it's part of the modern game. If I played for Barnsley and another club offered to triple my wages, I would also go, as much as I love Barnsley FC.

So yeah, loyalty doesn't really exist in modern football. There are a few exceptions, like Paolo Maldini at AC Milan, but that's just because Maldini could afford to be loyal, as no other club would have paid more anyway. I also loved it how Jussi Jaaskelainen spent more than ten years at Bolton, but now that they got relegated, he has been released too (I believed that he turned down Bolton's offer for a new contract). However, I still have respect for those players who love the game so much that they just can't quit. For example Jari Litmanen is still playing for peanuts in Finland at the age of 41... (psst Keith, he's out of contract at the moment! )

 

Professionals have always been paid - in football or any other sport/profession. Is it the amounts of money now that have made you feel that way ?

Not knocking you there, because when 70% of all revenues that go into the PL go on wages then something is drastically wrong at the top of the game. That said I don't blame a single player for taking what's offered - it's those players who then toss it off and it's those that run the game who have brought it to this point that I have contempt for.

 

The amounts being paid to some are indeed obscene, and that adds to the problem, but the point remains that loyalty doesn't exist, because each player is in it for themselves and their family (with good reason).

 

I blame Jimmy Hill for the high player wages of today!!

 

Good points.

The problem for me is not that the players make a good living - I don't begrudge them that at all - it's that the quantities of money are so obscene that the game now exists in a completely different world. Instead of operating at levels relative to the rest of us, they justify their existence by comparing themselves to other sports, to Hollywood actors and the like.

The argument that it's a short career and the players need to milk it for all it's worth just doesn't wash. A player earning 5k a week earns around 20k a month and therefore more than the average Joe will earn in a decade over the course of a year. If said player plays for 10 years, he'll earn more in that time than I will in my lifetime. It's more than enough.

You can go beyond that and say the best deserve to be rewarded well, to set themselves up to be far better off than the average Joe. Fine, let them earn 10-20k a week then, and they'll be millionaires by the time they're done. Maybe they can even earn more through sponsorship deals etc - let them.

The problem is that the majority of players down to the bottom of the Championship are on wages that allow them to be so much better off than the rest of us that they have no touch with reality, and naturally any 'human' concepts like loyalty, passion for the game, commitment, invariably go out of the window, serving to seriously f*** off the people who pay those wages. It will not last.

Little over a decade ago, fringe players at Premier League clubs, top Championship clubs and ageing pro's coming to the end of their careers used to look to clubs like Barnsley as a way of getting regular football, making an honest wage, and putting them in the shop window. These days, we can't even hope to attract that type of player because they'd much rather rot in the reserves and pick up their higher wage than actually play football, such is the obscenity of their wage packet. Similarly, very average football clubs and teams (your Bolton, Wigan, Stoke, Wolves, Fulham, WBA etc) are happy to pay players a small fortune to sit around doing nowt because they have the Premier League billions to pay for it.

The saddest thing is that you look at the list of over 100 players released by Premier League clubs and in theory we should be able to reasonably hope to attract 10% of them, given our standing in the league pyramid. The reality is that the majority, given the choice of playing every week for Barnsley on a damn good wage (relative to reality) would rather sit in the stands of a different ground picking up and even better wage, which will never really materially affect their life as they have more than enough already.

Like you say, no loyalty, no grasp of reality.

 

Riley that's a great post... the paragraph starting 'Little over a decade ago' is bang on.

 

Excellent points.

 

I don't mind them making a very good living but it has got to be affordable. While ever the clubs are getting into debt and the ticket/subscription charges are too high it is obviously not affordable at the level of wages we are at now. Needs to scale down massively.

 

very much agree,it is a business,there is little true loyalty either way, as amateur players in any sport would recognise it,
and agents in particular seem to be a very corrosive influence,take Butterfield for instance,I don't blame the lad for wanting more money...or a bigger club,all sportsmen have dreams and ambitions,but just from a moral point of view I would have felt it necessary to sign for an extra year for an employer who had just paid my wages(even though they are legally bound)for six months,even to be away in January so my employer can get a better fee.
PS I bet vicarious has never been used on this board before!!!!!

 

Aaaathankyawww!

 

think we are agreed the games gone barmy. It needs reigning in quick, dont begrudge anybody making a good living but the wages have long since passed the comparative skill level, the result of which is many clubs being pushed closer to the wall and cash strapped fans hving to dig ever deeper to fund it. to pay very average players waaay above average wages. At the very top its a bit different because the top guys bring in a lot of money in revenue (although their wages passed the obscene level long ago).