There can be no wages in the world that compare to what a growing group of young footballers are paid at £ 50,000 a week – and in some cases double that.
I would say it’s breathtaking aside from the fact that paydays, good or bad, continue to skyrocket in what could be described as football “pound anemia”.
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Micah Richards was making £ 50,000 a week in Man City as a 19-year-oldImage credit: AFP
The subject took a turn when Micah Richards admitted his salary increased tenfold to £ 50,000 a week when he turned 19 at Manchester City in 2007.
He shot to Las Vegas like a boy rushing to his local to celebrate an ascent.
Spending £ 110,000 for one night did little harm to his new fortune. And he says he can’t remember anything anyway.
In the 14 years since then, wages have risen so sharply that Jude Bellingham, 18, could pay a £ 34,000 fine for his staggering attack on referee Felix Zwayer, who was referring to a match-fixing scandal as if he had just robbed a piggy bank.
Anyway, Lionel Messi, every young star today has gold boots.
SunSport announced in April that Bellingham’s salary had doubled to £ 84,000 a week. Birmingham City, his former club, could use it to pay half the team’s salary.
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Such sums are used by ultra-rich clubs both to lure young players into other books and to fend off competitive scouts who are eyeing their academies.
In fact, Bellingham, then 17 years old and sold for a record £ 25m upfront, was an excellent £ 30m deal for Blues. A guaranteed 35 senior games per season, including in Europe, were irresistible for the youngster.
Borussia Dortmund have done very well with a similar policy for striker Erling Haaland and winger Jadon Sancho, who was at an intermediate stop between the Manchester clubs.
City received £ 8m, United reportedly paid £ 73m. Bellingham’s next fee is already estimated at £ 101 million.
Such a sum is available to half a dozen clubs at most, so the market for Haaland, who is now 21 and scores a goal for Dortmund, could attract something like the £ 162m that Paris Saint-Germain Monaco for Kylian Mbappe paid. then 19.
These rich children of our game are as spoiled as Hollywood stars.
After all, they are the future of the team and there is no club in the top club that does not hit the top young players on the head with pound notes to persuade them to stay.
I firmly believe that footballers pay the market price, after all, they are our only product and should be paid appropriately.
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Jude Bellingham was dissatisfied with the referee defeat of his team against BayernPhoto credit: Getty
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Paris Saint-Germain paid £ 162 million for the then 19-year-old Kylian MbappeCredit: AFP or Licensor
I won’t give them a cent of it.
But there is great danger in paying apprentices the same rate as top players.
First of all, this is an irresistible attraction for suspicious agents and dubious followers. Large sums of money can be an eye-catcher for some boys.
Not all of them have the social instinct and sensitivity of Marcus Rashford, although I must add that clubs today provide training and understanding of how money works.
More could be done, particularly by the PFA.
Age-related maximum wages may work, but we are in a competitive environment and a free market so capping wages on young people is unfair.
Clubs offer advice on high income, but it might be better to establish a rule that a graduated percentage of them should be held in trust or in a bank account for a limited time.
That doesn’t sound too exciting to a boy on a quick climb.
But while it might be fun for Alan Shearer to spend £ 110,000 in Vegas on the game of the day, I’ll bet it wasn’t for an old professional in a nursing home.
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