So it’s not earth-shattering news to announce that the very top footballers earn fortunes these days. If it takes me say an hour to write this posting (for fun of course), in the same time Wayne Rooney will have earned about £1800 from Man Utd. That’s the rate at which a salary of £300,000 per week gets drawn down. And that’s just the club money. Add to this his endorsements, sponsorship deals, image rights earnings, online gaming fees, social media earnings and investments and the figures are multiplied several times. So he’s probably earning closer to £10,000 every 60 minutes of the day that passes.
It’s staggering isn’t it? And one of the biggest earning areas for the leading players is the massively lucrative advertising deal with some of the biggest sporting brands in the world. Ads like these in fact…
Absolutely amazing skills eh! But the only point I want to make is that these skills look cool on an ad for Adidas boots but I watch Match of the Day and Champions League action on BT Sport and wonder where the hell these silky skills disappear to. On the ads I see the likes of Rooney and Sturridge performing incredible overhead kicks, blasting alien defenders to pieces with shots aimed with the power and accuracy of a shell from a Challenger tank. Kapow! And yet I watch on Saturday night and i despair at the inability of these richly-rewarded stars to shoot without scuffing the ball, take a decent corner kick and get it over the head of the first defender, or make a tackle without committing a foul, or take a free kick without it hitting someone in the wall at stomach height or take a penalty and blast it way over the bar.
I do think that football was a better game to watch without the incredible hype and exaggerated skill capability. Do we really produce outstanding players to rival say Bobby Charlton or Bryan Robson in midfield, or a better goal poacher than Jimmy Greaves or Gary Lineker, or better right back than Jimmy Armfield, or a centre half to rival the imperious composure of Bobby Moore, or a goalie to rival Gordon Banks at his best, or a winger with anything like the skills of Georgie Best or a playmaker with the touch and vision of Glenn Hoddle? I don’t think we do to be honest. Which of Theo Walcott, Gary Cahill, Ross Barkley, Nathan Clyne or Daniel Sturridge would walk into the Real Madrid, Barcelona or Bayern Munich teams? Answer; my aunty Betty would have stood a better chance. But take part in an incredible ad for FIFA 2016 and we deliver the greatest footballing technicians the world has ever seen. Unbelievable.
pp
Pasta Paulie 