The media, us and the rags - the truth

stonerblue said:
Didn't see this story, published last sunday, making much of a splash in the redtops



Premier League plays by government rules – with poverty wages for the rest
The state of the nation's favourite sport reflects the state the nation is in, and that means glaring, soaring, virulent inequality
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David Conn
David Conn
The Observer, Sunday 15 December 2013
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Lord Stevens Holds Press Conference Over Alleged Transfer Payments
Richard Scudamore, chief executive of the Premier League, has earned a £2.5m annual bonus on top of a generous pay deal. Photograph: Scott Barbour/Getty Images
Citizens UK's focus on the wages paid by England's Premier League football clubs exposes a stark truth about what used to be called "the people's game", and the country in which it has become all-conquering.

The historic neighbourhood football clubs, enjoying a commercial boom that has delivered a 2013-16 TV deal of £5.5bn, pay top footballers £10m a year and chief executives £2m a year. But hundreds of their staff have to make do on the minimum wage: £6.31 an hour for over-21s; £5.03 for 18-20-year-olds; and £3.72 for under-18s.

This is a damning portrait of football, the overblown great and simple game, of course, but it is also a more general indictment of a society in which endemic, grindingly low levels of pay, too little to live on with dignity, are actually set by the government, while vast individual wealth is idolised.

Now broadcast globally to 200 countries, the Premier League is considered a great advert for Britain, with the prime minister, David Cameron, inviting the league's chief executive, Richard Scudamore, on several of his trade trips. Scudamore recently asserted that the overseas billionaires who have bought the top clubs are attracted to a game that is still "quintessentially English".

For his job, principally selling the rights to live Premier League matches exclusively so that fans here and around the world have to buy pay-TV subscriptions, Scudamore was paid a £2.5m bonus over the years of the last deal, on top of his annual salary, which was £929,000 last year.

The Citizens UK report cites the salary package of Ivan Gazidis, Arsenal's chief executive, which in 2012-13 was £1.925m. Daniel Levy, executive chairman of London's other major Premier League football club, was paid £2.2m in 2011-12, the year of the club's most recently published accounts. The package was paid by Spurs's parent company, Enic International, which is registered in the Bahamas and owned by currency trader Joe Lewis, then recharged to Spurs.

The wages of footballers, and the commissions that are raked off by their agents, have become in-your-face inflated since the First Division clubs broke away from sharing their TV income with the other three divisions of the Football League in 1992 and formed the Premier League, going on to sell the live television rights exclusively to BSkyB.

Pay that had been held down by the clubs to a maximum of £20 a week when the players' union, the PFA, succeeded in having it freed in 1961, has been unleashed to a fierce market in which the best talent's rewards have been pushed up to the current £10m and more a year.

In training ground car parks where the football stars of the 1970s were doing well to park a Cortina, it is common now to see Bentleys and Porsches being lathered and valeted by young lads, ready for when the top players finish training and come back out.

The report has not exhaustively revealed the employment conditions at clubs for catering, cleaning and other staff doing vital jobs; one of its points is that the clubs have not engaged sufficiently with the living wage cam- paign for the numbers to be established.

Only one club, Manchester City, which has been owned since 2008 by the multibillionaire Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of the Abu Dhabi ruling family, has committed to paying its staff a living wage.

Citizens UK welcomes that commitment, and calls on Manchester City to go further, to set an example and commit to ensuring that its subcontracted staff – such as those working for the catering companies which serve up major matchday profits to the football clubs – are also paid a living wage.

The Living Wage Foundation has set this at £7.65 an hour, or £8.80 in London. Far from a footballers' fortune, it is an amount aimed at enabling people who are working at least not to be on poverty pay.

The Premier League's argument, that its clubs comply with the law – and, by implication, that the government could set the minimum wage at a liveable level – is valid in its way.

However, as things stand, the national sport reflects the times the nation is living through, as it always has. And in 2013 this means glaring, soaring, virulent inequality.
Wasn't aware of that, great to see!
 
remember arthur mann said:
Beeb in full flow this morning, reporting on Vincent Tan, Lets dig up the match where Cardiff beat Man City. Munchetty on Camp Bastion Afghanistan "Wherever you go around the World everyone supports manure, even the Afghani soldiers, I bet they wear manure shirts" Dan Walker "Well yes, we saw manure, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and er, er, Everton ones.


Probably because the city fans are the only ones capable of original and independent thinking, so have all been promoted to officers, or had the good sense not to enlist ;)
 
Citizens UK welcomes that commitment, and calls on Manchester City to go further, to set an example and commit to ensuring that its subcontracted staff – such as those working for the catering companies which serve up major matchday profits to the football clubs – are also paid a living wage.

Instead of calling on City to do more, focus your efforts on United and all the others until they reach our standard!
 
Bert Trautmann's Parachute said:
stonerblue said:
Didn't see this story, published last sunday, making much of a splash in the redtops



Premier League plays by government rules – with poverty wages for the rest
The state of the nation's favourite sport reflects the state the nation is in, and that means glaring, soaring, virulent inequality
Share 101


inShare
3
Email
David Conn
David Conn
The Observer, Sunday 15 December 2013
Jump to comments (0)
Lord Stevens Holds Press Conference Over Alleged Transfer Payments
Richard Scudamore, chief executive of the Premier League, has earned a £2.5m annual bonus on top of a generous pay deal. Photograph: Scott Barbour/Getty Images
Citizens UK's focus on the wages paid by England's Premier League football clubs exposes a stark truth about what used to be called "the people's game", and the country in which it has become all-conquering.

The historic neighbourhood football clubs, enjoying a commercial boom that has delivered a 2013-16 TV deal of £5.5bn, pay top footballers £10m a year and chief executives £2m a year. But hundreds of their staff have to make do on the minimum wage: £6.31 an hour for over-21s; £5.03 for 18-20-year-olds; and £3.72 for under-18s.

This is a damning portrait of football, the overblown great and simple game, of course, but it is also a more general indictment of a society in which endemic, grindingly low levels of pay, too little to live on with dignity, are actually set by the government, while vast individual wealth is idolised.

Now broadcast globally to 200 countries, the Premier League is considered a great advert for Britain, with the prime minister, David Cameron, inviting the league's chief executive, Richard Scudamore, on several of his trade trips. Scudamore recently asserted that the overseas billionaires who have bought the top clubs are attracted to a game that is still "quintessentially English".

For his job, principally selling the rights to live Premier League matches exclusively so that fans here and around the world have to buy pay-TV subscriptions, Scudamore was paid a £2.5m bonus over the years of the last deal, on top of his annual salary, which was £929,000 last year.

The Citizens UK report cites the salary package of Ivan Gazidis, Arsenal's chief executive, which in 2012-13 was £1.925m. Daniel Levy, executive chairman of London's other major Premier League football club, was paid £2.2m in 2011-12, the year of the club's most recently published accounts. The package was paid by Spurs's parent company, Enic International, which is registered in the Bahamas and owned by currency trader Joe Lewis, then recharged to Spurs.

The wages of footballers, and the commissions that are raked off by their agents, have become in-your-face inflated since the First Division clubs broke away from sharing their TV income with the other three divisions of the Football League in 1992 and formed the Premier League, going on to sell the live television rights exclusively to BSkyB.

Pay that had been held down by the clubs to a maximum of £20 a week when the players' union, the PFA, succeeded in having it freed in 1961, has been unleashed to a fierce market in which the best talent's rewards have been pushed up to the current £10m and more a year.

In training ground car parks where the football stars of the 1970s were doing well to park a Cortina, it is common now to see Bentleys and Porsches being lathered and valeted by young lads, ready for when the top players finish training and come back out.

The report has not exhaustively revealed the employment conditions at clubs for catering, cleaning and other staff doing vital jobs; one of its points is that the clubs have not engaged sufficiently with the living wage cam- paign for the numbers to be established.

Only one club, Manchester City, which has been owned since 2008 by the multibillionaire Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of the Abu Dhabi ruling family, has committed to paying its staff a living wage.

Citizens UK welcomes that commitment, and calls on Manchester City to go further, to set an example and commit to ensuring that its subcontracted staff – such as those working for the catering companies which serve up major matchday profits to the football clubs – are also paid a living wage.

The Living Wage Foundation has set this at £7.65 an hour, or £8.80 in London. Far from a footballers' fortune, it is an amount aimed at enabling people who are working at least not to be on poverty pay.

The Premier League's argument, that its clubs comply with the law – and, by implication, that the government could set the minimum wage at a liveable level – is valid in its way.

However, as things stand, the national sport reflects the times the nation is living through, as it always has. And in 2013 this means glaring, soaring, virulent inequality.
Wasn't aware of that, great to see!

Which is entirely the point. Only the bad stories make a splash.
 
DenisLawBackHeel74 said:
remember arthur mann said:
Beeb in full flow this morning, reporting on Vincent Tan, Lets dig up the match where Cardiff beat Man City. Munchetty on Camp Bastion Afghanistan "Wherever you go around the World everyone supports manure, even the Afghani soldiers, I bet they wear manure shirts" Dan Walker "Well yes, we saw manure, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and er, er, Everton ones.


Probably because the city fans are the only ones capable of original and independent thinking, so have all been promoted to officers, or had the good sense not to enlist ;)

If you went, look at the programme notes about Corporal Mark Ward from the FA cup final against Stoke. Corporal Ward is the Stockport lad who presented the trophy that day. read about what he did to win the George Cross.

A blue to be proud of.
 
Thanks for posting that stonerblue, i have started reading the observer stuff a lot recently and like it a lot.
They seem to have no obvious biased reporting but good journalism.
 
CTID1988 said:
Ive never understood why city dont give these journos a kick up the arse, surely its in out best interests to not let them print shit about the team

Why not just say f*** it! Let the media print what they want... if they love the rags...let them. We just get on with winning games and playing in the style everyone else dreams about.
OK the money thing will always be thrown back at us. But the way our Club is being run these days, I have no doubt that whatever line the Press spits out, we will eventually be seen as the team that has quietly gone about our business with class and style and done things the right way. And for that we owe a huge debt of gratitude to our fantastic owner.
.
 
TBH I read the article about the pay when it came out

Then I noticed the BBC re-reported it with headlines about about the way football clubs treated its poorest paid compared to their players. The headline was fine, however the photo at the side was of City!

I must have the tin foil on my head.
 
We play Liverpool on Boxing Day and to get us warmed up, Sky Sports 1 are showing some of these "Football Gold" matches.

Currently being treated to Liverpool vs Newcastle from 1996 (their famous 4-3) followed by rags vs City where the game was high scoring and was decided by an injury time winner. Now I wonder what game that could be?

Agenda much?
 
Speaking of Sky, MNF has just done a poll on manager of the season so far.

Wenger
Rodgers
Pardew
Martinez

Apparently, if you manage a rich club you aren't eligible, even if a). it's your first season in a brand new football culture/country, b). your team is undoubtedly the most entertaining in the league, c). your team has scored 9 more goals than anyone else, and of course d). your team currently sits in 2nd place.
 

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