Quote from: KTChampions on August 22, 2023, 08:38:02 PM

Quote from: shogun47 on August 21, 2023, 01:42:03 PM

Quote from: KTChampions on August 19, 2023, 01:45:34 PM

Yes, the sheikhs bring some element of madness into football and it is almost impossible to predict (with reliable accuracy) what will happen. As the saying goes, if a person cannot be bought with money, then he can be bought with big money Grin

In general, the modern world is like this (rather strange) - you can work all your life and not earn anything, and someone who shoots a couple of successful tik-toks will fall into a trend and become a millionaire in a very short time. Therefore, the crazy money that football players receive now is more or less logical - after all, they give their whole lives to football (maybe except for Neymar, haha) and are not just lucky.

No they don't give their whole lives to football. Everyone who is playing in a first league and an average player with average income could stop at age 30 and celebrate for the rest of his life with some reasonable financial management. Sponsoring deals and all other enjoyable advantages excluded. A craftsman or a surgeon is dedicating their entire life to their profession and they have to go 40 years at least before they can retire. Really, I can't feel this empathetic aspect that you brought up for football players. Mbappe could have stopped playing at age 21 and he would never have to care about money again. More and more players get contracts with close to 10 million per year at the age of 20.

When it comes to money, you are only looking at the top of the pyramid. All those who are below do not earn huge money, and those who are at its base (the largest number of players) are generally in the red. For example, my nephew quit football at about 14 years old (after a specialized boarding school and many years of training) because there were no guarantees of further progress and financial investments were required more and more. And many of his friends at this age have already left due to injuries. If you need a closer example, then remember Vinicius - last season, during another skirmish, he told one of the players: when you are done with football, you will have to look for a job but I am a millionaire. Something like that. I think there is an obvious basis for his words.

No worries, I see it the exact same way as you do. But when I talk about the "top of the pyramid", I really mean those who actually made it into professional football and do not belong to those who only made 10 games in their career and then didn't make the cut anymore. There are many players who fail to make it for various reasons and of them being injuries at a very young age. But that is not the type of person I was referring to. When somebody turns 30 and had a reasonably good career in a good league and was an average player, they are usually golden these days. It's very different from 20 years ago and before that. The huge stars from the good old times could still go broke whereas that is close to impossible for good players who get an average pay for 10 years in the Premier League. They could still go broke of course, but that would not be a question of earning insufficient money, but a question of spending too much of it. By the age of 30 essentially every single player will have made more money than a surgeon in a hospital can earn in his entire career. The surgeon has to work his life in the truest sense of the word whereas professional football players can retire when they are 30 and know how to deal with money.