Footballs Changed

I saw geoff hurst playing a few years later as player manager of telford in an away fa cup tie at tividale. I guess in those days even winning the world cup didnt make you a rich man

I wonder if the players (perhaps not Hurst or world cup winners because that's pretty special but who knows...) who were in the game before it got silly are bitter about the fact that there are now 20 year old kids who have achieved nothing with a higher net worth already.

You only have to go back to 1992 for the average top flight salary to be £100,000 grand a year, a great wage for sure and one almost anybody on here would grab with both hands...but a far cry from today's yearly wages (figures suggest 1.7 million top flight average/year).

I wonder if someone like Lineker resents the fact that he is very wealthy but within the bounds of ordinary wealth (i.e. top bankers/CEOs of largeish companies rather than entrepreneurs who have hit the big time or aristocratic landowners) while someone of equivalent ability now could become a billionaire.

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I overheard two Wolves "legends" talking just after one of the 80s bankruptcies.

One said he'd been told that he was to get a 50% wage reduction from £800 to £400 a week.

No way am I stopping the one legend said, ******** have been on to me, I'm off.

Football used to be defined by great clubs, it now appears to be defined by great players.

I used to play dominoes with Ted Farmer in the old Plough bar (Trysull), before the place got knocked through. He was well aware of having been born too soon, and not having had the riches the current players in the game were getting.

I overheard Steve Bull talking to Robbie Keane one day not long after we had transferred him to Coventry. 'Just one more move needed to make you a millionaire then Robbie'

Since then Keano has played for Inter, Leeds, Spurs (twice), Liverpool, West Ham, Celtic, Villa and LA Galaxy.

Safe to say Robbie is a wealthy guy nowadays

Surely our most wealthy product of all time, followed by joleon I assume.

Do footballers become wealthier if they have large/any transfer fees, or do you think wages do it all by itself?

Without trying to be smart, I ask because players like ward have never had a transfer fee over 50 grand and probably topped out wage wise at 20grand(maybe less).
His bank account I would imagine is significantly emptier than say Doyle.

The size of the transfer fee is not relevant in determining the player signing on fee. In fact some of the largest signing on fees go to players who have let their contract expire. Its purely done on negotiation not as a percentage

comment by (U17339)
I wonder if someone like Lineker resents the fact that he is very wealthy but within the bounds of ordinary wealth (i.e. top bankers/CEOs of largeish companies rather than entrepreneurs who have hit the big time or aristocratic landowners) while someone of equivalent ability now could become a billionaire.
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I wouldn't think Lineker's bitter. I read somewhere his BBC MOTD contract pays him £4 million a year, and that's for the rest of his working life if he wants to keep doing it. He seems to be pretty grounded guy and with a great lifestyle too away from his BBC work.