Mollygo
Lemongrove It certainly did.
The obscene amounts paid to and for footballers are only available because of rich owners. Nobody is worth that amount of money. Paying those footballers so highly makes access difficult for poorer fans. The high cost of a ticket e.g. £95 for Liverpool premier match is an incredible amount to pay.
Lots of people are paid obscene amounts of money but in a free market economy are judged worth it if the organisation paying them decides it makes financial sense. And lots of things are inaccessible for poor people. That’s how the market works. You can charge people what you want for a football match, a replica strip, a West End theatre ticket, a meal in a Michelin * restaurant - if demand is lower than supply, then you lower your prices, if not and demand exceeds supply, you might even put your prices up even more. In addition, of course, with football, the real money is in the broadcasting rights. So if lots of people are willing to eg subscribe to Sky Sports and Sky Sports can then get lots of advertising revenue, then the broadcasters can be asked for lots of money by the footballing organisations. Then if there’s lots of money flowing into football ( at the top end) it’s perfectly obvious the players will ( and should) get a goodly share of it. How on earth could or should it work otherwise in a market economy? In the mad crazy unfair world that is capitalism, I think it’s bloody great that footballers can be paid silly amounts of money - especially as they are disproportionally black and/or working class. If I were to get cross about people getting paid obscene amounts of money, I’d focus on commodity traders, currency speculators, asset strippers for starters.