Poor old Gareth Bale

[Biff]

£300,000 PER WEEK and he'll never get to play in a World Cup. Poor soul.

[Polar Bear]

I heard that he was on about £8 million a year.   Even my rudimentary maths cannot make £300,000.00 x 52 equal £8,000,000.00.

I guess that we'll never really know...

[LEE]

Christiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale in the same team. 
Two of the best "traditional" wingers in the world in a team full of quality.  Madrid don't mess about do they?

Of course their rivals in Barcelona have Neymar and Messi ....not a bad combo either.

Chelsea proved though that you can snuff out all this glorious football with 90 minutes of plain old hard work.  Bah Humbug.

[ferret]

bloody criminal, and Spain is having a worse recession than us, don't get me started on these overpaid under educated wankers   

[LEE]

bloody criminal, and Spain is having a worse recession than us, don't get me started on these overpaid under educated wankers   

I don't think it's Gareth Bale's fault.

Also there are several Bankers, earning as much as Bale, who are responsible for the Global woes, including Spain's.

Gareth Bale is guilty of kicking a football about, as a young kid, and being persuaded to kick it about in wealthy men's stadiums instead (for vast sums of money). 

What's a boy to do, refuse the money on account of the Spanish economic troubles?

The "under-educated wankers" aren't the guilty parties in all this I'm afraid.  Once again, it's greedy, unregulated, business men at the root of the problem (and wealthy tycoons with large egos and dubious motives).

Ferret, I put it to you that you'd accept £300,000 a week if a Spanish person offered it to you for doing your normal job or even for continuing to cycle as a hobby.  Yes?  No?

[Polar Bear]

I don't blame anybody for 'earning' pots of money.   Let's face it, we all would take more for what we do if we could.   

Unfortunately greed does rather get the better of some folk...   

[LEE]

I don't blame anybody for 'earning' pots of money.   Let's face it, we all would take more for what we do if we could.   

Unfortunately greed does rather get the better of some folk...

Can you cite an example that is different to someone working in a "normal" job? 

I'm thinking of someone employed as, say, an accountant, and being head-hunted by a large accountancy firm, for a big increase in salary.  The employee could go and ask for a salary increase or take the new job.  It's not seen as greedy in that instance, just understandable that someone should seek out the best deal that they can.

I doubt anyone would turn down a huge increase in salary for doing basically the same job.

Now let's look at greed in terms of Investment Banking.  Knowingly selling doomed financial products to investors whilst "betting" on their failure at the same time..and so on. 

Many of the "greedy" footballers are kids, in their early 20s.  They are represented  by agents, in their 40s and 50s, managed by managers in their 50s and 60s and bought/sold by tycoons in their 60s and 70s.  All people who should know better.

Good luck to the players I say.  More fools the wealthy tycoons and the banks that prop up their football clubs.

[Riggers]

I applaud young Gareth's success. Well done him. Who's to say what lies ahead in his football career. As they say: "It's a funny old game."

[Polar Bear]

MP, chief exec, top civil servant...   Let's not go POBI please?   

[Psychler]

More fools the wealthy tycoons and the banks that prop up their football clubs.

...and more fool the fans who pay the extortionate prices for tickets, shirts etc

[simonp]

As long as he pays his taxes (in Spain) then I see no problem.

[Biff]

I applaud young Gareth's success. Well done him. Who's to say what lies ahead in his football career. As they say: "It's a funny old game."

You are Ron Manager and ICMFP. Jumpers for goalposts...

[ferret]

I've always done low paid manual work, building sites, farming and now gardening by choice. The people you work with tend to be more genuine  I would rather be doing a job I enjoy and be paid 300 quid a week rather than a job I didn't enjoy for 600 a week, that's the way I am, money doesn't rule my world I believe doing a honest days work for a decent wage and most of these footballers/bankers wouldn't be capable of a days work  that's why I find the type of figures talked about in fluffball and all these big bonus grabbing city slaves, totally offensive,

[LEE]

I've always done low paid manual work, building sites, farming and now gardening by choice. The people you work with tend to be more genuine  I would rather be doing a job I enjoy and be paid 300 quid a week rather than a job I didn't enjoy for 600 a week,

But that wasn't my point.  Gareth Bale keeps doing the same job, the job he loves, for more and more money.

So it's like you working on a building site for £300 a week and another building company paying your building company a fee to have you work on their building site, only this time they will pay you £3000 a week.

Same job, a job you enjoy, but 10x the salary.

As for "The people tend to be more genuine"...well that's another discussion I suppose.  I tend to think that twats and saints are found everywhere.

[Jaded]

On the day that Kettering football club probably disappear as we know them, for debts of 1/6th of a week of Gareth Bale's pay, you have to ask if football in this country is looking after itself properly.

[Psychler]

On the day that Kettering football club probably disappear as we know them, for debts of 1/6th of a week of Gareth Bale's pay, you have to ask if football in this country is looking after itself properly.

I don't suppose the debt is anything to do with Paul Gascoigne's drinks bill for the 39 days he was in charge there!

[LEE]

On the day that Kettering football club probably disappear as we know them, for debts of 1/6th of a week of Gareth Bale's pay, you have to ask if football in this country is looking after itself properly.

No, it's quite clearly not looking after itself properly.

We're one step away from Franchises I reckon, like the dreadful American Football system.

It's too risky, for the tycoons who own the clubs, to be relegated or to miss out on a Champions League spot.  Eventually they will demand a permanent place in an Elite league (pan-European I would guess).  To hell with Kettering, the Brazilian Favelas can supply the talent without the need for expensive home-grown players.

Once it goes the Franchise route then the teams will be moved to where the money is at.  "Real Madrid of Dubai", "Manchester City of Riyadh" .

Let's be honest, there's less and less local representation in Premiership teams as it is. 
Arsenal are generally a squad of French or French-African players, managed by a Frenchman in an Emirates-owned team.  It's a small step to relocate them and just fly them to whatever Elite Euro team you are playing that weekend.

Chelsea have fielded a totally foreign team before now, not even 1 UK/Irish player, never mind just English or, heaven forbid, from near Chelsea.

With any luck it will all implode or the Elite can f*** off so we can go back to watching local players playing fairly crap, but enjoyable, football for their local teams.  I'm a United fan (from Manchester before you ask) and we still have a decent amount of home-grown talent throughout our squad.  Once that ceases then I'm getting my FCUM (FC United of Manchester) scarf.

None of this is the players' fault though.  It's big business sucking the soul out of everything as usual.

[ferret]

point taken Paul but I still find that sort of money being paid to anyone but especially a footballer totally disgusting 

[mattc]

On the day that Kettering football club probably disappear as we know them, for debts of 1/6th of a week of Gareth Bale's pay, you have to ask if football in this country is looking after itself properly.

No, it's quite clearly not looking after itself properly.

<hefty snip>

None of this is the players' fault though.  It's big business sucking the soul out of everything as usual.

It's mostly the fault of those in the governing bodies, who could easily have prevented the BigCo takeover. (as it happens, many of these are ex-players, but probably didn't earn more than a Kettering, certainly less than a Bale).

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

I couldn't care less about sports people earning huge amounts of money. It's not coming out of my pocket, unless I choose to pay for sports channels, replica kits, memorabilia, match tickets or pay-per-view events, in which case it's reasonable to assume I support a particular team and want them to have good players so that they win trophies. I'm far more concerned by the amount of sport which is on pay channels rather than free channels, and way way way more concerned by huge salaries for the people working in industries we have no choice about interacting with.

[Rhys W]

The PE teacher at Whitchurch High is some boy. He's taught the world's most expensive football player, the captain of victorious Six Nations and British Lions Tour teams and a Worlds and Olympics (twice) gold medal team pursuiter.

Maybe he should get a little pay rise?

[hatler]

The PE teacher at Whitchurch High is some boy. He's taught the world's most expensive football player, the captain of victorious Six Nations and British Lions Tour teams and a Worlds and Olympics (twice) gold medal team pursuiter.

Maybe he should get a little pay rise?

Oooo. That's neat. I'd missed that. I bet he gets job satisfaction that is priceless.

[Rhys W]

Interesting nonsensical factoid on BBC News 24 just now. At £300,000 a week, it's not worth him pausing to pick up a dropped £2 coin, because he earns more than £2 in the time taken to do it.

[Wowbagger]

Interesting nonsensical factoid on BBC News 24 just now. At £300,000 a week, it's not worth him pausing to pick up a dropped £2 coin, because he earns more than £2 in the time taken to do it.

Precisely the thought that went through my mind last week when between us the attendant and I dropped one of my £1 coins at the barriers just before crossing the Dartford bridge.

[Polar Bear]

Bale's wages remain a mystery as I've just read that Ronaldo has signed a deal for £288k per week, more than double what Bale gets, apparently...