High Paid Football Players - Ali's Words

One of the most annoying phrases I come across is regarding football players being overly paid. This morning I was explaining to my daughter how it is not a fair statement. The statement undermines the immense hard work and extraordinary skills required to be a professional player. One has to look beyond the figures and keep in mind the larger picture to understand why they are paid well.?

Ever wondered how these football players make it to the top? Working at the bottom of the ladder or at the beginning of their careers these football players face huge challenges. If you look at the number of talented football players who want to become professional players, it is unbelievable.?

Since playing European football is the ultimate dream of any player, let's look at things in perspective and do some rough calculations. Consider the top 5 leagues in Europe and take 20 teams in each of these leagues. We are talking about 100 teams at the top of the game. Imagine, if these 100 teams took a thousand players each, that makes a hundred thousand players. From a hundred million only a hundred thousand players are narrowed down. This is the kind of competition we are looking at!??

Also, you cannot compare the pay of a football player to typical salaries because their struggle is altogether a different ball game. It is a short-lived career for which a player dedicates his life, hence paying them an average compensation will be truly unjustified.?

Secondly, not all football players are heavily paid. Only the star players are and rightly so. These are just a handful! Take the example of Mohamed Salah. He is now one of the most famous Arab players in the world who comes from a country of a billion Egyptian players. So out of these one billion, he emerged as the top player. Recently, Salah signed a contract of four hundred thousand pounds a week. One cannot question then that he didn’t earn it. Certainly, he deserves every penny for what he has achieved.?

It is also important to consider the enormous hard work and exceptional talent honed by years of training that goes into making it big in this competitive game. The struggle of a player to chase their dreams must be acknowledged and appreciated. These professional players win national and international tournaments and make their teams and countries proud. After all, when you hear people say that football players are overpaid, then it seems unjust.

The bottom line is that football players are not paid too much, they're paid adequately for the hard work and determination, and graft it takes to make it to the top level.