AT the top level, football players earn as much in a week as the average nurse, journalist, government official or schoolteacher does in a year.
This huge disparity in earnings has often led to complaints that footballers, and top-level sports people in general, are grossly overpaid.
However, within the football world itself, it’s a case of some animals being more equal than others.
For instance, there were recent reports that Saudi Arabia Pro League champions Al-Ittihad were willing to pay Mohamed Salah in excess of €200 million per year to make him the highest-paid player in the world.
Cristiano Ronaldo, who joined
another Saudi club Al Nassr in January, currently holds that title with his reported €200m-a-year wages.
Salah is already earning enough (reportedly £350,000 per week) at Liverpool to live comfortably but with high-level football there is always a club willing to offer more.
A publication recently published a list of the 10 best-paid footballers in the world, and the lowest-earning among them is reportedly on €40m annually.
Some of the individual wages are bigger than the budgets of some states in Nigeria.
But, at the bottom of the food chain, there are professional footballers struggling to make ends meet.
The ones at the base of the pyramid aspire to reach the top so that they can also live large.
While the focus is often on the big players in the big European clubs and their hundreds of thousands of hard currency in weekly wages, there are footballers across the world who earn peanuts, so it is a lopsided system driven by demand and supply.
Oftentimes, it is the insatiable craving for on-field success that drives clubs to offer unsustainable wages to the most talented players.
The investment sometimes pays off, and sometimes does not, with clubs left with players on big wages unwilling to take reduced remuneration after an unsuccessful campaign.
For clubs that live within their means and stick to FIFA and UEFA’s Financial Fair Play rules, they generally afford these wages with the income they generate from television royalties, ticket fees and other lucrative commercial activities.
No matter the justification or criticism, the debate about players’ wages will continue to rage on.
For those who are opposed to the sometimes staggering amounts players earn, it is simply a quest for the good life taken too far.
“It doesn’t make sense and it will never do to me. With all of the poverty and suffering in this world, no human being should earn those ridiculous amounts,” Soji Adegbesin, a medical doctor and keen football follower in the Ayobo area in the outskirts of Lagos, told Naija Times.
Supporting Adegbesin’s opinion, Kazeem, an electrician based in Ajah on Lagos Island, said the footballers are ‘greedy’.
“I believe the clubs wouldn’t be paying so much if the players were not greedy. How can one person ask for £500,000 a week? What do you want to do with that much money? It’s just too much and it will continue to rise,” he said.
“Some players will even refuse to take pay cuts when the club goes broke. They don’t care if the club folds up. Na wa o.”
Still in opposition to the big wages, Nkechi, a hairdresser in the Ayetoro area of Ogun State who claims to be dating a local footballer, believes the top players are sucking life out of the sport.
She said: “It’s because of all these big wages that players like my boyfriend are not well paid. The money should trickle down and every footballer should earn enough to be comfortable, but the Ronaldos, Messis and Neymars of this world have taken everything.”
However, those who back the big salaries are also convinced the players have done nothing wrong.
“Why should they not be rewarded for their hard work? Fans go to the stadiums, watch on television and buy club merchandise because of the players, so they deserve everything they get paid,” offered Simon, a Lagos-based lawyer.
“Let’s be honest, would you turn down money if it’s offered to you? The clubs make big money off these stars, it’s only fair that they get their share of the largesse. Aren’t the club officials and football administrators also living large?”
Chukwuemeka Ifedi, a store owner in Lagos, said too much envious attention is focused on footballers.
“Company CEOs make billions while those who sweat the most are paid meagre salaries, but nobody complains. It’s what footballers earn that we constantly gripe about,” he said.
“Let’s be fair to these guys and leave them to enjoy the fruits of their labour. People should stop being jealous. If the clubs can’t afford to pay big players, they should go for those they can afford. No be by force.”
For Stanley, a tricycle operator and keen football follower, the career span of footballers should be considered.
“These players are on top for 10 years or even less, so they should make as much as they can when they are in demand. It’s not greed, it’s being smart.”
Which side of this debate do you belong to? Are players right to take as much as they can or should there be a cap on what they can earn? Leave a comment below.
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