Just where has all the money in football come from?

The financial aspect of sport is one that has often been the cause of controversy. Far gone are the days when top-level sport was still considered a leisure activity, with football being the frontrunner when it comes to British sport and the money surrounding it.

The top-earning players in the Premier League are Wayne Rooney, Robin Van Persie (both of Manchester United) and Yaya Toure (Manchester City), who earn around £250,000, £240,000 and £240,000 a week respectively. These figures are approximately nine times the average UK annual salary. To any member of the general public, whether they are football fans or not, this may seem like an absurd amount for someone who essentially runs around a field kicking a ball.

Some players, like Arsenal forward Nicklas Bendtner, says that players deserve such high wages because they aren’t allowed to do activities that may injure them, such as go skiing. However a lot of players prefer to remain quiet on the topic due to the nature of it, especially in the current economic climate. Retired striker Alan Shearer is one of the more recent people directly involved in football to extend his opinion on the matter, saying it isn’t right that players get paid so much.

On top of that, transfer fees are getting higher and higher every year. Gareth Bale’s world record transfer of £85 million from Spurs to Real Madrid set a benchmark that shouldn’t be surpassed for some time, but it could easily be. Players are becoming more and more valuable in the transfer market as they become more and more valuable to their teams, which prices them over and above what they would normally be worth. Another good example lately is Marouane Fellaini. The Belgian moved from Everton to Manchester United on transfer deadline day for £27.5 million, a figure that surprised fans and critics alike. They also agree that Fellaini has been quite substandard this season so far, and that United may have overpaid for the midfielder.

But the real question, in my mind, isn’t whether players should be earning so much. It’s how and why do they earn so much.

I consider there to be two main reasons for this: Foreign Owners and TV Rights. There then comes the question of whether spending will ever decrease.