Home > Football > Leeds United, Coventry City and the Jimmy Hill road to financial ruin
Leeds United, Coventry City and the Jimmy Hill road to financial ruin
The deal brokered by Hill and the PFA over 40 years ago has spawned a monster that sees today's average players milking clubs dry. And as usual, it's Joe Public who suffers.
by Kenny Harper on 27 March 2008
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The PFA has done plenty of good things over the years in helping clubs and players when they have have found themselves in trouble.
More recently they have been proactive in helping Tony Adams champion an anti-addiction clinic which has helped players such as Paul Merson (a recovering gambling addict), along with helping youngsters who are discarded by their clubs, to find a second career.
However, the PFA have a lot to answer for when it comes to the way in which they have managed their members and bullied the clubs into a position where they are literally held to ransom by players. These clubs have no choice but to hand over unbelievable amounts of money to young men who have no idea what to do with it.
Granted, agents have a massive part to play in this procedure but it was the PFA who took an underpaid and overworked player and turned him into an overpaid and underworked one.
Under the stewardship of Jimmy Hill, the PFA broke the fixed wage for footballers, and as a result the amount of money now in the game is being drained out as quickly as it goes in and the only people to benefit from it are the so called superstars.
When Everton won the League in 1985 the average wage was approximately £1,500 a week, these players were the best players around at the time and that was decent money. Now you have players who are really nothing more than decent footballers earning a minimum £30k a week.
Most players earn as much in a week as the people who go to watch them earn in a year, and they are only the average - the top earners in the league now are looking at £120k a week, which puts them in the bracket of paying as much in tax per week as the fans earn in a year.
Some clubs have struggled to cope with these wages - Leeds United are a typical example. But the irony should not be lost that one of the main clubs to struggle financially since the creation of the Premier League and its limitless wages rises has been one very close to Jimmy Hill's heart, Coventry City .
Wages are a huge problem for clubs nowadays and now that there is so much money in the game it should reflect in cheaper seats for fans.
Sadly, the only people who have benefited have been the players and I am sure that wasn’t in the spirit of the original deal brokered by the PFA over 40 years ago.
Comments (3)
by Richard Peel on March 27, 2008
The players are not the only beneficiaries from the enormous amounts of money swishing about in the premiership in particular.....pro rata the agents do by far best. They are commodity brokers, nothing more, nothing less. They put nothing in, have no responsibility for 'their product' - fitness, skill, training, performance and behaviour - but take an awful lot out. If it weren't so easy there wouldn't be 300+ agents in the game chasing easy pickings. Which, incidentally, they refer to as their industry!! The FA (what a weak and timid organisation)should look at severely restricting the remit of their operations and really get a grip on regulation. Cheers.
by Kenny Harper on March 27, 2008
I agree one of the main ways that we can change the status quo is to deal with the agents, they are one of the mian culprits of the problems today, but we woudlnt be in this situation if the deal brokered 40 years ago would have been dealt with properly then, or even since.
by Leeds Fan on April 23, 2008
the bent managers and chairmen who I beleive receive back handers from agents. The reason why Mr PR suddenley lost his business nounce and started chucking money at everyone, hoping no-one would notice the rubbery quality of the cash he was handling.
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