Football.

Are wages for top flight footballers getting out of hand?

With transfer fees for top flight players continually increasing so are the wages. 

It was reported recently that Chinese Super League clubs are interested in signing Tottenham's Dele Alli.  Tottenham will never sell him you say but it seems that Chinese clubs are queuing up to sign him and pay him in excess of £800k per week.  

You did read that right but just in case you thought you hadn't I will confirm......£800k per week! 

So lets put this into perspective:

The British Prime Minister reportedly earns £144k per year which after tax, pension and national insurance contributions nets out around £81k.  Is this enough for carrying the weight of the country on your shoulders?

Your GP can expect to earn between £55k and £81k a year. Whilst fully qualified nurses salaries start at around the £21k mark and rise to around £28k. More funding for the NHS I hear you say and quite rightly so. These people care for our wellbeing and so should be recompensed accordingly.

Newly qualified teachers salaries start at about £21k rising incrementally to around £33k. These are the people shaping the future of our country.  If that's enough for them to be paid then we will have a shortage of mentors educating our children very soon.

A trainee firefighter is on around £22k per year.  Once full competence is achieved this could rise to around £29k. For police constables, it's between £19k and £23k.  After seven years they can achieve £37k which is the top of the pay scale.  These people regularly put their lives on the line for us.  Is this all they deserve to be paid?

So what about Joe Public?  The average working person can expect to earn £28k per year.  Depending on circumstances they may or may not be able to afford watching top flight footballers fall over and roll around after being poleaxed by another top flight footballer sporting a perfect haircut and designer tattoos. 

Now I am all for people who are good at what they do being compensated accordingly but £800k per week? For playing football? That's £41.6m a year... It would take Joe Public roughly 1,485 years to earn that amount of money.

Too much money in football? Yes, there is.  

Will we keep watching it? Of course we will!