Net worth...

This is not so much a blog about football, but it does contain football references. So Gaby will be hooked already and Hazel will be put off already. But you can't please all the people all the time. At least, Chris Evans clearly can't on his blog so why should I expect to?

I heard a Radio Five Live discussion the other night about doctors. It was the old chestnut of GPs salaries having gone up significantly and how a lot of them now earn over £100k a year.

A number of people were complaining about the outrageous level of GPs earnings, specifically in relation to other health service workers. Now if you're a nurse or a paramedic or any other of the thousands of care workers that earn too little, I have every sympathy. I have blogged before about value and worth, I think, about how our society only values celebrity and money, so I hope you will know that I fully agree that we undervalue many in our society that really add value - not only the traditional care workers, but also and especially, the stay at home mums.

So what does it say about our society that we can complain so bitterly about the discrepancy between the lowest paid care workers and the highest paid, while not even blinking about the fact that these highly paid GPs actaully earn the same in a year as some top footballers earn in a week? Now THAT is what I call really obscene and unacceptable.
What does it say to our kids? Go play football instead of studying to become a doctor. You'll be more highly valued.
There was a comment I heard on the radio about some footballer who had been bought for £8million or something and allowed to go on a free transfer. They had worked out a cost of about £360,000 per goal he had scored. And that was without the extortionate wages he'd earned during that time.

"Market economics" I hear many of you cry. The people want the football, are willing to pay huge ticket prices, are fiercely loyal customers, and the players are simply reaping the rewards of that demand. Besides, Burberry wouldn't do much business if it wasn't clothing the footballer's wives and girlfriends and the wannabe fans. There's a massive knock-on business of conspicuous consumption, generating jobs and fuelling growth.
Absolute rubbish, I say. So much money that they cannot know what to do with it all. Gambling, mansions, fast cars driven way too fast, women like Danielle Lloyd attached to their arms. It is all just quite distasteful from where I sit.

I don't know what to do about it. Boycott Sky maybe? We've been there in blog-world already...
Boycott football? Well it's actually a pretty small minority of people who actually go. Did you know that more people attend church on an average weekend than go to a live football match? Now, personally, I do think that we might get somewhere as a society if the people who normally go to football went to church instead, and gave the money they would normally spend on tickets, beer, pies, travelling to away matches (or home matches in the case of Man Utd fans), replica shirts, programmes (need I go on?)...give it all to a worthier cause. Like nurses, or paramedics, or homeless people, or starving street kids in India. Whatever. Anything but give it to this very small group of quite fragile and strange individuals, who happen to be fortunate enough to be able to do funny things with their feet and a bit of leather (or plastic). And have no doubt that most of the money paid for these things basically flows straight into the players pockets.

What real net worth do footballers actually add to society?

I think I shall have to do what Mrs Moose always suggests, and refuse to be associated with something so immoral. At least at the top level. With the way West Ham are going this year, that won't be too hard after the end of this season!