On Monday the long awaited move of Welsh superstar Gareth Bale from Tottenham to Spanish giants Real Madrid was completed for a world record transfer fee of £85.3million. Football enthusiasts all around the globe will be relishing the prospect of seeing both Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo line up in the same team, and also the prospect of Bale, Ronaldo and Barcelona forwards Lionel Messi and Neymar all playing in the same league this season. The next El Classico is certain to be a great spectacle. But when you take a step back from all the excitement and view the transfer in terms of the world as a whole, some serious moral problems are to be found.
Spain, the home country of Real Madrid, is currently in a very serious financial crisis. Of course, there are many countries that are also have financial problems, including the UK, but Spain is seen as in a worse situation than most. The country has a mountain of debt and unemployment is a very prevalent problem for many. For the first time in it’s history, the country has more than 6 million of it’s population unemployed. Youth unemployment figures stands at over 57 per cent. And almost 2 million households have no job-related income at all.
Despite their country’s problems, Real are still the biggest money making machine in the world of football. Part of this is due to television money, part of it is due to matchday income, and also part from their commercial prowess. But Madrid also have a large amount of debt of 590 million euros. This debt is a long term debt which makes it manageable, but the fact they are going out and spending £85.3million whilst still in such a large debt certainly raises a few eyebrows. The club would counter this by saying that the commercial benefits of signing Bale will effectively pay the transfer off itself. For example, the day after Neymar signed for Barcelona, Panasonic signed a sponsorship deal with the club. The company were one of Neymar’s sponsors while he played for Santos in Brazil and this would certainly seem to be more than a happy coincidence. I imagine Real Madrid will be expecting something similar from the acquisition of Bale, as well as money from things such as shirt sales.
But potentially the most staggering figures come when you look at the wage that Gareth Bale will be getting each week. Bale will be getting paid £300,000 per week. When you compare this to the average annual salary in Spain of around 23,000 euros the mind boggles. Bale earns more than this a day, earning £36,471. This is £1,520 every single hour of the day. And every single minute of the day he earns £25.33.
To me, no matter how good a footballer Gareth Bale is, he is not worth the money that has been spent on him. Nobody on the planet can do anything that is worth that much money in my opinion. Of course, I am not blaming Bale for this, I think anybody would jump at the chance to earn that much money, it is the club and ultimately the governing body’s fault for letting this happen. If FIFA decided to introduce a global wage cap or transfer fee gap clubs would have no choice but to comply. Yes, big money signings make it exciting for fans, but when there is so many people struggling to even put food on their table, this cannot be justified by excitement in my eyes. I believe money in football has reached a point where it could almost be described as obscene.
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