The then and now of footballers’ pay

I must have missed the memo when it became compulsory for major football matches to operate as a marketing opportunity for the game’s marquee players, but that was what we got at Kiev after Liverpool were outmuscled and outplayed by a flinty-eyed Real Madrid. After Ronaldo announced that his time at Madrid was in the past, then our very own Gareth Bale, he of the annoying man-bun and sublime skills, in a rather graceless piece of scene-stealing, decided to ask for a transfer. Live on TV. Well, you do the math. He is on £300,000 a week (or £600,000 depending on who you trust), but assuming someone somewhere has to come up with a lot of loot.

In a timely coincidence, Bale’s remarks come just as an excellent book is published by my friend Jon Henderson. When Footballers Were Skint (Biteback) is about the game’s ‘golden age’, before the lifting of the pay cap in 1961.