Tottenham beat Manchester United to the signing of Paul Gascoigne twenty years ago because part of their offer was to provide his family with a house. It seems in today’s age any offer would be laughed off unless it included a clause with a lifetime supply of space shuttle tickets for the player and his family (presumably return rather than singles) and of course, keys to their very own space-station mansion and mini space ship parked out front, but only on condition that he made an appearance or two that season.
This is an exaggeration maybe, but not as much as one might think. Football has become a sort of modern-day version of a bohemian play unfolding in a fantastical world- one knows that with the play it is not real before we enter, so once within its walls any bending of rules that govern normal everyday life are accepted. Yet the crucial difference in football is that the characters are actual real people, in a real world, yet we laugh off hearing so and so is earning ten grand and hour as “that’s just football”. And to add insult to injury, that player has a right to seek better terms (as does anyone) if the space-age offer mentioned at the beginning still fails to make him agree to kick a ball around for 90 minutes a week. This is how football is today- inflated egos, inflated wallets… and we love it.
They say footballers’ careers are short, but perhaps this is a good thing, as from start to finish it must be one big ego-trip. Every week, thousands of fans hang obsessively on their every move, staring in adulation as they dive and tantrum around the pitch like a spoilt child, and clapping in crazed admiration as they place a round sphere between two posts and a crossbar. This stone-cold dissection of the game may grate on many fans, including myself, yet sometimes a reality check is required, if for nothing else, to keep our feet firmly grounded, before we are swept away in football fantasy world of money, girls, fast cars and heads that will undoubtedly grow bigger and bigger with every autograph signed and Bentley bought. For those ten years or so of a footballer’s life where he is in direct beam of the limelight, his self-esteem must be at such a high he could start cutting it into portions and selling it to the highest bidder- presenting yet another money-making opportunity in the process.
Not all footballers fall into this extreme mould I have portrayed. But sadly, many do, and even sadder, many are the young starlets whose potential is ultimately halved by the lures of the celebrity culture that engulfs them as they start to enjoy the fruits of their first lucrative paycheque. What often shocks me is players who turn down perfectly reasonable offers from outstanding clubs, in the off-chance another club might come in offering 10k more a week in wages (despite the latter club potentially being a less prestigious one). Once such recent case is the Russian playmaker Andrei Arshavin, who after having a superb Euro 2008, allegedly spurned advances from Arsenal (whose wage structure is dwarfed by the other members of the top four in the premier league) in hope of a more profitable contract elsewhere. A shame, not least that the premier league will miss out on providing a platform for the Russian maestro to showcase his skills on a weekly basis, as well as being a testament to the greed permeating football today.
There are still a handful of personalities within the game who represent somewhat of a leaning towards the ethos of Terry Butcher, bloodied bandage swathed around his head, a put-my-body-on-the-line attitude where financial gain seemed a distant priority to the challenge at hand- eleven men versus eleven men. John Terry is the name that first springs to mind, yet despite not being his fault, it is hard to afford him the reverence a medieval knight would command when you are wise to the fact once the final whistle blows and he is out of the showers he will speed off in the latest sports car one hundred grand a week can buy. In their own defence, one will hear countless times these glorified athletes protesting it was simply the way the cookie crumbled- in other words, the profession they chose happened to have incredibly rich financial reward sewn in as a makeweight to the arduous training, high-pressure lifestyle and strict dietary regulations that are part of the job. However, I have come to realise in my meagre ten years of avidly following the game, (I first stood up and took note after witnessing one of the greatest goals of the last twenty years in St Etienne 1998, when a certain Michael Owen literally burst out the traps and onto the scene) that it is not the players who should be castigated for the state of their profession, yet it is hard to point the finger at anyone else. Corporate monsters, television giants perennially raising the auction stakes for coverage rights, greedy agents and clubs too rich for their own good who have succumbed to the latest fashion of buying trophies rather than earning them? They all have a part to play no doubt.
All that I find certain is that whilst Mr Terry is bemoaning the fact Mr Shevchenko is earning thirty grand a week more than him, there are men in the sweltering heat of Iraq literally putting their life on the line for this country (not a slightly damaged metatarsal) earning the kind of money that mssrs Beckham, Gerrard et al would consider a bargain price for a personalized number plate. And as well as finding that certain, I also believe it to be patently disgraceful. I love football, and I have nothing new to add to the age-old debate over the astronomical amount of money surging through its veins. But in my short career as a football aficionado, this has been an issue that I constantly swept under the carpet, dismissing in with a shrug and a “Well I suppose he deserves it, I couldn’t stand being on a constant diet, and it was an awfully good dummy he produced to round the ‘keeper.” So now I have decided to write about it, vent my disapproval, and then witness nothing being done, certainly within my lifetime. If anything, it appears to be escalating, none more so evident that the simply ludicrous figures being touted in the Cristiano Ronaldo transfer saga as if they were pocket change … 60 million pounds? No, I don’t think that’s quite enough, how about 70 million, another ten won’t hurt. That Zinedine Zidane must have been pretty mediocre; he only commanded a paltry 45 million!
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