£10,400,000 per year. That's not bad, is it?

[PaulB]

Now at least you can go to a game and see the whole pitch without having to peer round a pillar (How many of us can remember watching a match where little more than half the pitch was visible because of poor ground design?), and the money is going to the entertainers.

No, sorry but you're not entirely correct on that one. There are several sections in the ground I watch my football at where you can't see the whole pitch at all. Now I'm alright where I sit but I've been going for 53 years so know where to go and where to avoid. There are sections in all the stands at our place where there's parts of the actual pitch and in one section, the entire opposite stand are blocked from view and there are seats on sale which clearly state 'obstructed view'. Now having visited most of the current Premier League stadiums (no, I refuse to use THAT pretentious word!) I can also say that in many of them - maybe it's where they stick the 'troublesome' away fans - there are many areas of the pitch which are blocked from view. One particular example makes it a ridiculous situation to actually charge fans anything at all to sit in several rows of seats. They call it 'the envelope' rows and they should pay the fans who go there for treating them with such contempt.

 

[nickyboy]

Yet nobody ridicules Stephen Hawking for being rubbish at football.

I do

I bumped into the Stephen Hawking fella down the local park and challenged him to an upsies competition. I'm no great shakes but I beat him quite easily

 

[Markymark]

I do

I bumped into the Stephen Hawking fella down the local park and challenged him to an upsies competition. I'm no great shakes but I beat him quite easily

Must have been a lucky day as he beat me.

 

[swee'pea99]

Quite. Notwithstanding the obscene sums of money, and what else could be done with it, I would argue there is a very strong correlation between a footballer's skill and wages. I'm not so sure this is the case in the corporate world.

I think it probably is. The corporate world is not much on sentiment and everything is very transparent. If you perform, you coin it in; if you don't, you're out.

 

[User482]

I think it probably is. The corporate world is not much on sentiment and everything is very transparent. If you perform, you coin it in; if you don't, you're out.

You think the corporate world is transparent? Seriously?

Anyway, that wasn't really my point. It's pretty obvious if a player is good enough to play at the top level, but much harder to discern the relationship between the talents of a chief exec, the likelihood of them getting the gig based on those talents, and the performance of the company based on those talents. Put another way, do we really believe that privately-educated white men are innately better than everyone else at running large companies?

 

[swee'pea99]

You think the corporate world is transparent? Seriously?

Anyway, that wasn't really my point. It's pretty obvious if a player is good enough to play at the top level, but much harder to discern the relationship between the talents of a chief exec, the likelihood of them getting the gig based on those talents, and the performance of the company based on those talents. Put another way, do we really believe that privately-educated white men are innately better than everyone else at running large companies?

Yes I do. Seriously. Everything they do is in the public gaze, and the results appear in the annual report & accounts, in black, white and cold hard numbers. Certainly it's harder to assess CEOs' performance than footballers' - but that doesn't mean it's impossible. Fund Managers are pretty good at figuring out who's hitting the back of the net, and if UBS, Barclays and The Pru decide you're not cutting the mustard, your days will be numbered.

 

[Smokin Joe]

[

Yes I do. Seriously. Everything they do is in the public gaze, and the results appear in the annual report & accounts, in black, white and cold hard numbers. Certainly it's harder to assess CEOs' performance than footballers' - but that doesn't mean it's impossible. Fund Managers are pretty good at figuring out who's hitting the back of the net, and if UBS, Barclays and The Pru decide you're not cutting the mustard, your days will be numbered.

I bet many a football club would give their right arm for a player with the talent of Phillip Green or Robert Maxwell.

 

[swee'pea99]

[

I bet many a football club would give their right arm for a player with the talent of Phillip Green or Robert Maxwell.

Or Steve Jobs?

It’s difficult to remember how far Apple had fallen. Just a few months away from bankruptcy, the company had a dwindling 4 percent share of the PC market and annual losses exceeding $1 billion. Three CEOs had come and gone in a decade; board members had tried to sell the company but found no takers. Two months after Apple’s deal with Microsoft, Michael Dell told a tech industry symposium that if he ran Apple, he’d “shut it down and give the money back to shareholders.”

Lucky for the shareholders that Jobs and not Dell was at Apple’s helm. Apple’s market capitalization went from $3 billion at the start of 1997 [footnote 1] to $350 billion today—more than the valuation of Microsoft and Dell combined—making it the second most valuable company in the world.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-10-06/steve-jobs-the-return-1997-2011

 

[User482]

Or Steve Jobs?

It’s difficult to remember how far Apple had fallen. Just a few months away from bankruptcy, the company had a dwindling 4 percent share of the PC market and annual losses exceeding $1 billion. Three CEOs had come and gone in a decade; board members had tried to sell the company but found no takers. Two months after Apple’s deal with Microsoft, Michael Dell told a tech industry symposium that if he ran Apple, he’d “shut it down and give the money back to shareholders.”

Lucky for the shareholders that Jobs and not Dell was at Apple’s helm. Apple’s market capitalization went from $3 billion at the start of 1997 [footnote 1] to $350 billion today—more than the valuation of Microsoft and Dell combined—making it the second most valuable company in the world.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-10-06/steve-jobs-the-return-1997-2011

Well that's the point, isn't it. Some chief execs are good, some are bad, but the footballing equivalent of Robert Maxwell doesn't get to play for Barcelona.

 

[PaulB]

Well that's the point, isn't it. Some chief execs are good, some are bad, but the footballing equivalent of Robert Maxwell doesn't get to play for Barcelona.

No, most of them have to limit themselves to Evertonil.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

I have the same mind boggling troubles. Why did I bother getting degree educated when others who kick a spherical bag of air around a big lawn in front of a crowd get in half a day what I earn in a year?

Well, seeing as how clever you obviously are: why did you?

 

[SpokeyDokey]

It appears some resent football players as they sometimes come from poorer backgrounds. Many slate Beckham/Rooney etc for supposedly being thick or chavy. Snooker and tennis players often come across as coming from a better off background, possibly due to the cost of the opportunity they needed making it more selective to those from richer backgrounds. Football talent can grow in a dirt-patch at the back of a council estate.

I think this may have something to do with how footballers are viewed where the success is somehow undeserved due to their expected position in society.

Beckham was widely ridiculed for being thick. Most likely because he spent his formative years developing an exceptional talent rather than studying English. Yet nobody ridicules Stephen Hawking for being rubbish at football.

Good points!

People should be happy that some youngsters from the bottom/near bottom of the stack go on to earn as much/more than the so called 'Elites'.

 

[screenman]

I had a car cleaner at one of the garages today sit and watch me work for 2 hours, he did wonder off for a tea break but did not one bit of work the whole time. He did though do a lot of moaning about howmuch the other people on the firm earned. I tried to explain that he got paid a lot for the amount of work he did, it fell on deaf ears though.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Just to stir up the angst of those who are so despairing of footballer's pay. Carlos Tevez is on around £600k pw or £30m pa tax paid - and then there's hs various sponsorship deals etc.

It's an out of balance world and I do find the wages somewhat obscene but as already said there are similar examples in other fields.

Someone writes kids books about people flying around on broomsticks and she's worth what £200m+ and the leading actor he's worth around £60m.

Tiger Woods - he's closing in on being the first ever sporting Billionaire.

And look how much rock stars are worth and their equally well paid contemporaries as winners of talent shows various.

Look at this lot here - some talented and some not so talented imo (FWIW):

http://www.celebsnow.co.uk/celebrity-news/the-x-factor-rich-list-2-323907

 

[srw]

The problem is that Chief Executives decide their own salary, which is agreed by their colleagues on the board.

Not usually. For large companies, which is where the anger is directed, it's decided by Remuneration Committees. Which are probably not the most independent of judges.

@User482 is right that evidence of strong positive correlation between CEO pay and performance is patchy at best. Long term incentive programmes related to share price were supposed to deal with the issue. The fact that usually passive shareholders are increasingly getting twitchy about them suggests that hadn't worked.