I thought the worst when the phone rang at 2am yesterday. I knew it wasn’t my mother as she was staying with me for the 
weekend. Could it be my elderly in-laws, I wondered? Or a friend in desperate need?
No, it was none of those. It was my son David ringing from Hull where he is at university to ask if we had heard about Ramos being sacked as manager of Tottenham Hotspur, his favourite team, and my husband’s too. He felt we should know this red hot news instantly, though I blearily begged to differ.
It later made me think about how this credit crunch should knock some sense into the heads of our top football clubs. How can they justify the obscene amount of money they spend on players? Is Manchester City’s striker Robinho really worth £32.5 million? How realistic is that in this day and age?
And how come Hull is joint second on the premiership table when their players cost a fraction of the others they are up against? I
hope they can maintain their lead above Manchester United and Arsenal and prove that quality on the pitch does not necessarily come at the highest price.
I don’t like greedy football players and there is no way they can justify their exorbitant fees. If the rest of the country is fastening its belt, then I suggest that football clubs should show restraint too when buying players.
Btw, do you think Tottenham’s latest win after a string of humiliating defeats was just a fluke, or are they now on the way back up with Harry Redknapp as their new manager? If they had brought back former player David Ginola as their manager, I might have been tempted to trek down to White Hart Lane to lend my support as he was one of my few football heroes.
I cannot stand football and think the amount of money that is wasted on it is disgusting 🙁
Hull were top of the league after bearing my team WBA 3-0.
I remember those phones going off in the night…certainly makes you think. This was when my son first joined the Airforce!!
Maybe he should try a sponsored silence?
Of course, we here in the States don’t pay soccer players all that much, except for that Spice-Beckham fellow who was paid a lot of money for no apparent reason a year or so ago.
(In America, “soccer” is the name we give to your football. I note that the New Orleans Saints played the San Diego Chargers in London this past weekend. If our football finally catches on over there, what will it be called?)
But the thing is that the owners pay athletes these exorbitant salaries — but still make money.
For me, the consolation is that the highest-salaried teams don’t always win. Thus, baseball’s New York Yankees, with their $200 million + payroll, sit at home watching the World Series on TV (if it ever resumes… the weather has been terrible in Philadelphia). And who represents the American League in that series? The Tampa Bay Rays… with a payroll of (only) $40 million or so.