£195,750 a year - The average basic wage in the Championship

[Pyro Pete 2,353]

According to a survey, conducted by The Independent in conjunction with the players'' union PFA, these are the average wages in the Championship based on age group. The overall average comes out at nearly £200,000.00 before bonuses. With bonuses the figure rises by anything between 60 and 100%!

Age 17-18 £22,500

Age 19-20 £43,700

Age 21-22 £79,000

Age 23-24 £79,200

Age 25-26 £136,000

Age 27-28 £261,850

Age 29-30 £247,000

Age 31-32 £247,000

Age 33+ £195,700

Average = £195,750 (based on all players aged above 20)

http://sport.independent.co.uk/football/news/article357006.eceDon''t even ask what the Premiership players earns!

[Hucka Hucka Huckerby 0]

I bet our players earn more!!!

[Citizen Journalist Foghorn 0]

So you are telling me that we pay 200,000 a year at least for Andy Hughes, a player whom cannot pass a football and has been utter dross this season!  The we are paying 200,000 a year for Dickson Etuhu to amble around the pitch doing nothing. Let alone how much we are paying JJ2 and Rayman for sitting on the bench/watching it in their hotel bar respectively. Or the 2 sub keepers Gallacher and Ward.

I wonder how the wage bill compares to 2 years ago??  considering we have a worse set of players now.  This is what you get when you sign players from the same division - higher wages - made all the worse cos they were failing players in this division!!

we had to renegotiate wages with andy hughes after initially failing to agree terms!!  How much we pay this crapper for being here and playing poorly is beyond me!!

[Rudolph Hucker 0]

Then there are the Agents, Managers, Coaches and any number of others with their snouts in the trough. The whole situation is ridiculous. Meanwhile, Clubs risk going to the wall in the lower divisions.

The top Clubs are slowly becoming the property of magnates from abroad and you have to wonder at the morality of the sources.

Football is a fascinating, dirty business; greedy and avaricious, inspiring and compelling. I love and hate it.

What the future is is anybodys guess. I would not be surprised to see Sky subscriptions fall and revenues drop. For me the Premier League in it''s present format is doomed. Those in charge should be looking to change things as soon as possible or reap the consequences of a disinfranchised and priced out generation and a turning away of a disaffected and disowning current fan base.

[Oso Butch 0]

Now you know why they all still quote a ''weekly wage'' of £xxx (as if they get rewarded in the same way that a plumber''s mate does).  Multiply it by 52 and it turns out to be an obscene and unwarranted amount of money.

 

[Canary Poirot 1]

Rudolph you are dead right - the Premiership in its current guise will go to the wall. After all, how many of us can continue to accept that games such as Charlton V Everton or Bolton V Middlesboro are top quality games - games you simply cannot miss? Or Fulham V Aston Villa? About 60% of the Premiership is simply not worth watching, with boring football, and teams too scared to lose playing defensively. If you don''t support the team on the tv - why bother watching it? Aside from Norwich, who I will watch regardless of how abysmally we play, I simply refuse to turn on the tv and watch Charton and Bolton play out a dour 0-0. It''s because of the "we must not lose" mentality persisting in the top league - brought about due to the catastrophic drop in revenue any team who is relegated faces - that it comes about.

However, there are some games in the Premiership which are worth watching - any involving one of the few genuinely top quality teams. And if you really want to be entertained just switch on the Champions League. Quite frankly the best football int he world is played in this tournament, and from about October onwards - I''m never failed to be entertained.

The moral of the story - if football is to continue to generate such huge sums of money then they have to play attractive football. Arsenal anyone? Simply fantastic to watch. They are the future. Not man mountains playing out dour 0 - 0 draws with no flair - you can get that on a Sunday morning down the local park.

[Rudolph Hucker 0]

Thank you for your reply Poirot. I agree with you regarding the Champions League even though it is becoming increasingly rare to see English talent playing.

If the natural progression of this is a league for the G14 or G18 (and I understand Chelsea have not been invited to this particular party, yet) then even for the supporters of those monied Clubs what is the future? No Mersey or North London Derbies? Away matches via Easyjet? No prospect of promotion or relegation?

The majority of football supporters follow Clubs outside the Premier League but if you include television followers this is reversed and if you include worldwide followers this is dwarfed. But television audiences do not make a crowd.

Many people on here have expressed that however dire the football, going to Carrow Road is just too much a part of their lives to give up. So what ultimately matters to, say the followers of Liverpool or Man Utd. In the end analysis being members of  a group of people  assembling to support a common cause will surely matter more than being super-rich and disinfranchised from other familiar opponents in the North-East and UK through playing in a European Super League.

Even in recent times us supporters liked players like Ian Crook who was part of his local community in all the common ways like using the same video shop as you or turning up at local football training;Iwan Roberts who would have a pint of lager and chat with you after a match, Martin Peters who would queue next to you and other supporters at a Grantham chip shop with his colleagues after an away match at Derby; Mark Bowen shopping in Asda with the missus and so on. Now so much of this familiarity has gone, we live in the age of the protected prima donna and the common contact with footballers has moved from grass roots to tabloids.

Of course there are exceptions and I probably move in the wrong circles but I do believe that supporters are losing the identification they had with players and this is far more precious in what it means to follow a Club than stellar wages, inflated egos and fancy super leagues.

Sky does try to turn football matches into national events when they mainly only interest the supporters and rivals of the respective clubs. They need a re-think. A golden welcome on promotion, money up front so promoted teams have a more immediate chance or perhaps a Premier League one and two.

I do not begrudge the very best their level of earnings, the top in any profession generally gets well rewarded; it is the ridiculous sums for mundane footballers which sticks in my craw and in particular that it makes them believe they are so much better than they really are.

 

[Budgie 0]

I can see these wages rocketing again next season.

Why? Just heard on the news that Virgin are preparing a bid that will outbid Sky''s proposed package.

[Silver Canary 0]

I don''t think that the average fan would mind this sort of money if there team won every week but even this sort of money doesn''t seem to produce the goods.

[Alex Harvey-Jones 0]

Love the avatar Pete!! Quality!