A rich man's game

It doesn't take a genius to realise that the wallets of professional footballers have been overflowing for the best part of 10 years or more.










Since Alan Shearer's record transfer of what now seems a modest £15m to Newcastle United in 1996, the levels of cash coming into the game, particularly in Britain, seems to have rocketed.

Russian billionaires, American tycoons and celebrity publicists have all had an influence in the games financial growth, but the lions share of the credit, if that's how you want to look at it, goes to an Australian media mogul.

At the Premiership's formation in 1992, Murdoch's newly-launched Sky venture paid the FA £191m over the course of five seasons. From the start of the new season, a total of £2.7bn will be paid over the next three years which will cover almost every medium from terrestrial television highlights and live satellite broadcasting to mobile phone clips and delayed online downloading.
The result is that Premier League player wages are tipped to top a collective £1bn a year, with predictions that the first £200,000 a week player is not far away.

The debate will always rage as to whether such individuals are deserving of such salaries but with those numbers in mind, it's worth taking into consideration the current plight of Leeds United. Guardian football writer David Conn has taken a deep enough look at the financial state of the club and the figures make for surprising reading.

As a result of former chairman Peter Ridsdale handing out cash to players as if it had come with a board game, the club are today contenting with a bill of almost £850,000 to be paid to former players - over £216,000 of which will be heading in the direction of Danny Mills, a player who left the club back in 2003.

Unfortunately, the people responsible for the club's current state are far from the losers in this increasingly sorry affair. A local window cleaning business and mobile DJ will be offered just 1p per pound of the £6,800 they are collectively owed whilst the volunteers of St Johns Ambulance will still be expected to attend Elland Road events next season despite being reimbursed just £1.65 of their £165 expenses claim.

It's not for me to argue how much any individual should or shouldn't get paid and I'll be the first to acknowledge that Leeds United is the very extreme of embarrassing financial mismanagement. I voted with my feet a few years ago, I can't justify to myself paying inflated ticket prices to watch badly managed clubs in an industry that frequently rewards underachievement. The "loyalty"argument that many supporters put forward is pathetic. If any other business in any other industry tried to financially milk them as a customer in such an overt manner, they would take their custom elsewhere without a moments thought.

As unlikely as it is to happen, salary caps would be one of the best things to ever happen to British football. The argument that such a system would have to be Europe wide is true, but I'm yet to find a sport in which salary capping hasn't had at least partial success in saving clubs from themselves and making the competition a better spectacle. The unpredictability of American sports is virtue of a cap system, the Australian NRL likewise and British sports have also benefited from such a system.

In the meantime, supporters will continue to complain about rising cost of Sky subscriptions and increased ticket prices to pay for the latest Portuguese superstar. The chances are though, they'll be complaining whilst stood outside the box office, renewal form in hand.