£300,000 a week

ps Man U plc is certainly a global business. It is registered in the Cayman Islands, a tax haven, and is still struggling to pay off millions of pounds of debt. It is not unique among premiership teams.

..but, then again, so should young jockeys and they're paid peanuts [and get far worse injuries] so I've changed my mind...

I think that young, up and coming footballers need to be on a good wage because they're missing out on college or starting a career but could have a potentially career ending accident at any time and need a bit of financial back up just in case. We were talking about it yesterday as we drove past Pride Park.

Don't get me started either! However the salary that top people earn working for a charity irks me more. Some earn more than £100.000 a year. Think of all the donations they swallow up before the charity get a penny.

This possibly does't apply to Wayne Rooney, but all this money makes players much more likely to have little allegiance to their club, and fellow players, so making it even more difficult for managers to build cohesion and a sense of responsibility to each other within the team. "I'll go where I can get most money" attitude prevails.

I agree with you all too, it is obscene to be rewarded with such a vast sum, is it a female / male divide though , do most men support these monies paid to famous footballers?
When people are scraping though on the minimum wage, how can they not feel sick at heart , even if they love the sport!

Ladies we are now in agreement and whenim64 has summed the current situation up admirably. The football clubs of yesteryear which were loyally supported by their local communities are long gone having been replaced with global business empires. It is as if the actual game of football (love it or hate it) is a necessary inconvenience and only a means to an end. The true supporters have certainly been priced out in the main, and by design, in favour of the corporate hospitality guest who, on match days, will spend vast sums entertaining with champagne and lobster as against the traditional cup of Bovril and meat pie. The sums paid to players and profits (or losses) made by directors are merely a product of the business. I imagine, despite rhetoric to the contrary, supporters are not given a second thought in terms of affordability and access to what they have followed for years. Sad but true it seems.

Do you remember the days of Michael Parkinson when film stars, writers, comedians, etc., came on the programme and just had an interesting chat?

Nowadays, if such a person is a guest on any programme, it is not to have an interesting chat but to market: a newly released book or film, a theatre production they're in, a business they've started, etc. etc. I've also noticed that such guests often drop into the conversation a favourite product they use. On top of this, I assume they get paid for appearing on the programme.

Michael Parkinson himself commented that now "chat shows" are just a marketing opportunity for the invited guests. (It's a pity that he also joined the club by fronting adverts for questionable life insurance products).

Everything is about competition and profit and there is no reason why footballers should be immune to this drive for more and more money.

It is unfair that a loyal football supporter should have to pay so much money to watch his team, but I think it's even more unfair that the necessities of life - food, water, housing, heating - are subject to the same ever-increasing pressure for profit.

My dad has had a season ticket for "his" team ( no prizes for guessing which one) since he was 14 year old. He tells me that his dear old uncle got him hooked ! My dad is now 76 he virtually never misses a game (although he has sadly missed a few lately as mum is very poorly) it makes me angry/mad to think how much of his money ( they live in a council bungalow) has contributed to "their" inflated wages.

.....but in what way do these highly financed teams relate to their ordinary supporters, whose ticket and merchandising prices are beyond their reach? It's galling when football scouts appear at Sunday League games looking for rich pickings, from a branch of the FA that relies on volunteers and goodwill. Bankers have put mortgages beyond reach for young people and premier league greed has put large clubs beyond the reach of their local supporters.

That more or less sums up the way I feel ps

I think we are all missing the point here and that is that the sums being paid are based on sound business logic and no grangura I don't see anyone mentioning it is ok for footballers but not for business men - football is a business. If Man Utd had let Roony go they would have needed to spend probably two to three times the contract cost (around £85 million) in order to find a replacement of the perceived calibre. Don't forget it is not only the players ability that is considered it is the ability to move merchandise. It is rumoured that when Alan Shearer was transferred for a whopping £15 million some years ago the club earnt all the transfer fee back and more besides in the first year just in shirt sales. Lionel Messi is rumoured to be valued at £300 million - eye watering sums but no one pays good money for nothing, its business.
As an aside I believe anyone in business, be it a sport or not, is entitled to earn whatever anyone is prepared to pay. The question is whether or not it is moral, I personally don't have a problem with it as long as I can opt out should I not agree. I don't need to buy an Apple Mac or watch Man Utd but I do need to buy Gas, Electricity, Food and Water.

Agree wholeheartedly Mishap

I do not think it is OK for anyone to earn that much. It is meaningless. Nobody needs that much. Many thousands of people in the third world could receive clean water or medical help for that sort of money; those who earn it will just buy luxury yachts to play around on. I cannot feel this is just.

I always find it so weird and illogical that many (mainly) men think it is OK for footballers, but not for business men??? So hypocritical.

How does this sum reconcile with the £4 million per week for Tim Cook of Apple. There are hundreds of individuals with salaries or incomes of over a million a week and although obscene to most of us is a product of a capitalist society and supply / demand. A few years ago it was reported that an american hedge fund managers remuneration was around $770 million. That is serious money and if my memory serves me correctly he had in the region of seven mega yachts. We would ask Why? I guess the answer is because he could. It just seems so unbalanced to me when most of the planets population have to survive on less than a pound a day. Fortunately I came into this world with nothing and still have most of it left so don't have the headache of what to do with wealth in order to stop the tax man getting his hands on any of it.

Give it away? Get a trophy wife with a serious shopping habit?

I just keep asking myself what I would do with all that money and I have no answer at all.

Totally barmy!

Stansgran, yes! I used to wonder why the shopping centre was so quiet on certain days until I twigged!

Penstemmon are you sure that the season is mid August - May? I thought that they had a day off at Christmas and played all year!

A few programmes are cancelled so that football can be shown at peak time. Luckily I enjoy reading.

I read somewhere that more people attend church than football matches . Between them, they keep an awful lot of people off the streets. I love shopping when there's a major local football event.

I suppose it's the impact on football fans who have to pay very high prices to watch the game at weekends. There are so many ways round the enjoyment of pop music when prices for CDs are too high, and people don't usually go to concerts on a weekly basis like the football supporters do their local game. My SiL manages a Sunday League team and struggles to get sponsorship for their kit, and bring in their subs to pay for FA membership and a regular pitch. The lads he nurtures and brings on to olay well love their football but they can't afford to go to watch United, which is just a mile or so down the road from where they live.

I too have wondered why footballers are singled out (there can be real hatred towards people like Rooney and Beckham).

Could it be because it offends some to see people from working class origins with none of the saving middle class graces having so much money to splash tastelessly around?

Though I agree that to be paid this sort of money is completely unjustifiable, I don't know why footballers are always singled out. Well known film stars, pop singers, etc. can earn enormous amounts of money (flying their own private jets, owning huge yachts, islands, etc.) but we seldom hear much criticism of them.

And, of course, those in the top financial jobs are paid crazy money for feathering their own nests and making a mess of the economy.

The whole system seems mad to me.