It's obscene!

Last week one of the sports commentators was saying that she took her family to a premier league game and realised she could have booked a foreign holiday for the same price.

A footballer doesn't save lives, neither does a banker or a pop star, All of them are paid ridiculous amounts. It is the way our society works. Paying people according to the benefit they bring to our lives would require a complete change of attitude-it ain't gonna happen!

Because that fantasy pleases me ( and it's the lions doing the attacking) perhaps he would bash them over the head with a great wad of moolah.

But why a personal attack on david beckham and not just a comment about his wealth?

I am imagining David Beckham and his weedy tattooed arms in the ring as it were with a few gladiators and angry lions!

Sepp Blatter if that the right name is keeping his luxury car and apartment in Zurich. So you don't have to behave well in the top echelons either.

Isn't the way we seem worship celebrity today part of the whole problem?

I loathe the way our TV screens, on-line pages and newspapers are stuffed with photographs of 'stars' and personalities who make a living by appearing on cheap TV - panel shows or reality programmes. They crave recognition. They don't really count for much, are often lacking in talent, and brain-power, they spend fortunes on their looks and clothes, yet a large part of the population seem to lap it all up and photographers earn mega bucks by following them around. Footballers have become Gods. It's madness.

If there is money in this sort of dross, no wonder kids want to emulate them and agents get them as much publicity as is possible. Even notoriety seems to pay. I am sick of seeing articles about the recent Oscar's ceremony splashed everywhere on the internet. Who really cares? These are wealthy people in lavish settings wanting to be seen and we buy into it. The Oscars isn't news of any real significance and if I see the awful and unfunny Chris Rock's face one more time today I am likely to take a brick to my laptop! There are so many obscene things going on in the world, and we do need a break from the many horrors out there, but sadly, even the light entertainment that is 'celebrity news' makes me heave.

Did anyone hear this yesterday. If Bill Gates money stopped now, and he spent one million pound a day, it would take him 218 years to spend all his money.
And yes, I do know how much good he does.

Professional gladiators did live a lot longer than the amateurs sent into the arena with the lions. They were too valuable to have killed off too frequently, and provided they could put on a good show their career was much like that of a professional boxer - they took some blows, gave some, left the arena as victor or vanquished and had their wounds attended to by the best doctors, and returned to work once they were healed. If the contests were too obviously orchestrated the audience were displeased, but a certain amount of showmanship made for popularity.

There were risks from infection or lucky swipes that got somewhere vital, but the attraction of the bouts was that the opponents were well-matched and could defend as well as attack. Boxers face risks from head blows even with padded gloves.

It was only under the more sadistic emperors that fights to the death were common. Popular film-makers have concentrated on the more lethal aspects.

My husband was a football player. It is , indeed, an incredibly short career

only they didn't live as long.

It is not new. Top gladiators in ancient Rome earned the same kind of money, and were treated with the same kind of adulation by the populace.

Not right at all. The reason given, in the case of sports stars, is that they have only a limited time in which to earn big money. After that they are on the scrap heap unless they are Gary Lineker (is that how it's spelt?) or Seb Coe or David Beckham.

It is obscene, but no more obscene than millions being earned by "entrepreneurs" such as Simon Cowell, pop stars, actors, writers or anyone else not providing an essential service to the community.

Also, as starbird mentions, bankers. The RBS chief's pay has just been doubled to £3.8 million, despite a £2 billion loss. 121 employees have received more than £790,000 during the year.

I agree that it's obscene, but so is paying bankers and other city type managers/directors a salary of hundreds of thousand and then giving them a bonus of millions, or people getting golden handshakes then walking into another million pound job.

I have no interest whatsoever in football, but I picked up a book Football and Gangsters: How Organised Crime Controls the Beautiful Game (see link below) in the library the other week and sort of dipped into it.

www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004NBZG6A/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

The obscene amounts of money does make you wonder.

Or my blood pressure rise? Perhaps I shouldn't if I value my sanity...lol!

mollie take a look at what Rooney has reportedly been offered to play for a Chinese team, it will make your hair curl

And meanwhile our junior doctors and many others in worthwhile professions are vilified for wanting due respect for what they do for relatively little pay by comparison to footballers' pay....too right it's obscene. Upside down values!!

Watched Room 101 last night as John Humphrys was on and I like him. One of his consignments to Room 101 would be all professional sport. The example he spoke of was football and I agreed with everything he said. The obscene amounts of money paid for players, their wages etc and the resulting cost of a ticket to watch a game.

Obscene and actually quite a handicap in life if good guidance isn't given on how to deal with that sort of income. And yes, maddening when ticket prices are so ridiculously high ...

No one is worth that silly money. Mad when ordinary fans can't afford to go to a match.( so I understand.)

Obscene that this footballer could not set a better example to the young. Sickening.

I agree Mollie but that's what professional sport is all about these days ...money, advertising, over paid and over inflated egos

Give me an amateur football team or village cricket any day.