The Fabian Society has done a poll on what people believe differing professions should earn. From this, they conclude, that professional footballers should earn £62,000 a year.
Well what an pointless piece of research that is. My Guess, although it is part of a larger report, this fact was picked out to get the report some press coverage. however, to my mind it undermines what must be in the rest of their report.
The Fabian Society seems to ignore the fact that a professional footballer earning the best wage for only about 10 years. Very few professionals play beyond their 35th birthday, and at that point their career is over.
I won't dispute for one moment that premier league wages are obscene, and the sight of Frank Lampard demanding £135,000 a week must be sickening to those on low pay. However, telling a professional sportsman with a 10-15 year career that they will not ear enough money to sustain themselves over the length of their lifetime, when after the age of 25 the may be left with permanent injuries hardly seems just or fair, which I believed with the values the Fabian society was supposed to be all in favour of.
1 comment:
I don't think this interpretation is right. The poll simply reports what the public (on average) feel is the value and fair wage for different jobs.
http://fabians.org.uk/news/income-poll/
So It would be the poll respondents who would not, in your view, paying enough attention to the short-term nature of sporting careers. 62,000 is an average. The Independent report says that 9 per cent of people support footballers getting half a million a year or more.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2893881.ece
I don't think it follows that the Fabian Society is recommending that footballers should be on 62,000 a year, but are instead reporting what value public places on different jobs.
The poll does suggest that public attitudes believe in wage differentials across society - but that these should be around 10 to 1 between top and bottom, rather than some jobs earning 50 or 100 times others.
Post a Comment