You often hear it said these days that the modern footballer is grossly overpaid for what he does. In fact, you often hear it said by me, especially when one of these spoilt sportsmen does or says something that gets right on my nerves. Which is just about every week.

The new financial fair play rules are probably football’s last chance to avoid total financial meltdown- James Calvert

Well, thanks to a strangely named British organisation called the High Pay Centre, we now have some facts to back up what we all knew was true anyway.

According to a report released last week by the HPC, footballers have seen their average pay rise by a staggering 1,500 per cent over the past 50 years.

That figure is even more preposterous when you consider that the average wage in the UK has only increased by 186 per cent over the same period. The disparity between footballers and the rest of us mere mortals becomes glaringly obvious.

The bit about this HPC report that really makes my teeth grate, however, is the other finding: that it is the fans who are footing most of the bill for these astronomical wages. Again, this is something we all knew but it’s good to have our suspicions confirmed.

Since 1989, the price of the cheapest tickets to watch top football games has gone up 1,000 per cent. Back then, you could have watched Liverpool for £4 and Arsenal for £5. Today the price for the cheapest tickets at those two clubs is £45 (€57) and £51 (€64).

It’s hard to find anything positive to say about those figures, unless of course you happen to be a footballer in the Premier League. Then again, if you’re a footballer in the Premier League, you probably couldn’t add them up anyway.

When you read about Robin van Persie’s pay package at Manchester United being worth £235,000 (€297,000) a week, it makes you wonder if the world might not actually have gone a little bit mad.

That means Van Persie is getting paid £1,400 (€1,769) an hour, every hour – fit or injured, awake or asleep, at work or on holiday – just to play the odd game of football. And the Dutchman is not even the best-paid player in the English top flight.

Maybe if the sport could afford this sort of spending, then it might be tolerable. But according to the HCP report, English football is living beyond its means: debt in the Premier League accounts for 57 per cent of all the debt of all the top divisions in Europe. And more than half of English league clubs have been insolvent at some point in the past 20 years.

So in order to keep the likes of Van Persie in baby Bentleys and bling, everyone else involved in the game is suffering.

The fans are forking out more and more just to get through the turnstiles and the clubs themselves are getting deeper and deeper into the financial mire just to keep up in the rat race.

You don’t have to be a genius to work out that this situation is simply not sustainable. Something has to give.

The new financial fair play rules are supposed to help bring this situation under control. Clubs being allowed to spend only a portion of their income on wages should help ease the problem.

The irony is that when these rules were first being talked about, many people laughed them off as being unnecessary legislation in a sport that was perfectly good at taking care of itself.

The reality today, however, is that these rules are probably football’s last chance to avoid total financial meltdown.

If they don’t work, then clubs going into administration or completely out of business will no longer be the exception but the rule. Players will have bitten off the hand that feeds them.

I wonder what the little boy inside Van Persie will have to say for himself then…?

Blades claim a new record

The one thing you never have to worry about when you are a Sheffield United fan is life being boring.

As clubs go, they are pioneers when it comes to controversy, weirdness or just achieving the utterly unexpected.

But their latest claim to fame is pretty unique, even by their impressive standards – becoming the first English team to lose consecutive, competitive football matches on penalties.

Last May they lost the League One play-off final on penalties to Huddersfield.

I know, I was there and I lived the agony.

Then last week they lost a League Cup tie to Burton Albion, also on penalties.

Between those two matches, there were friendly games, of course, but the play-off final was the last competitive game of last season and the League Cup match was the first of this season.

Just another remarkable achievement to add to their long list of heroic failures.

Texting times for Pietersen

Going to switch to cricket for a moment now if you will indulge me. More specifically, to one individual cricketer – Kevin Pietersen.

The England batsman is one of the finest in the game with his aggressive stroke play and ability to play shots many others would probably call impossible.

But over the past couple of weeks or so he has essentially committed international cricket suicide in one of the most staggering ways imaginable.

During a recent test match between South Africa and England, he was sending text messages to members of the South African team telling them how they should bowl to get Andrew Strauss out. Yes, that’s right, he was telling his opponents what to do to get his own captain dismissed.

I can understand that maybe Pietersen and Strauss don’t see eye to eye and maybe they aren’t the best of friends. But telling your opponents how to bowl against your own team is nothing short of sporting mutiny.

The situation has been made all the more suspicious by the fact that Pietersen was actually born in South Africa and could feasibly have been playing for them in the match, had his career taken a different path.

Pietersen has since apologised for his actions but I still can’t see any way for him to get back into the England fold.

Frankly speaking, I’m not entirely sure he would be welcomed by the players or the fans if he were.

What a daft way to throw away your international career.

It’s early days yet

As usual, I would like to thank you for your e-mails about my predictions for the season.

Yes, I did say Manchester United would win the league and they promptly lost to Everton. And yes I did claim Swansea would be relegated and they promptly won 5-0 away to Queens Park Rangers.

Not the greatest of starts, I admit. However, I would like to remind you that there are still another 37 games to go and everything can, and probably will, change over that period.

It is, however, going to take something spectacularly disastrous to happen for Michael Laudrup to now become the first managerial casualty of the season.

I may have possibly done the Dane a disservice and I apologise for that. Can I change my prediction to Brendan Rogers…?

Nice from afar, far from nice

What exactly were the Manchester United hierarchy thinking about when they allowed their new away kit to make it through the design stage?

They’ve had some strange kits over the years – like those grey ones which Sir Alex Ferguson once claimed were the reason they lost a match – but this year’s version is up there with the ugliest.

The patterned material is fine from a distance, but when you see it close up it looks like it would be more suited to a picnic blanket. Or the lining of a cheap school blazer.

When United midfielder Anderson came on as a late substitute during the game with Everton last Monday, he did so with the name ‘Andreson’ on his back.

Some claimed this was a ‘typo’ by United’s kitman, but I personally think Anderson has spent the previous 84 minutes of the match trying to rearrange the letters so people wouldn’t know it was him out there wearing a table cloth.

I suppose the questionable kit will at least give Ferguson something to blame if United fail to win the ‘leageu’ this season…

sportscolumnist@timesofmalta.com
Twitter: @maltablade