To think the comparisons between nurses and footballers pay are bogus!

[BoysofMelody]

We have a visitor staying with us and I watching Match of the Day. After that tutting, she asked how much the players were paid? I said there was a huge range, but the average was about £40,000 a week. But the best paid earned over £250,000 a week.

Which was the cue for a moan I've heard many times before of: 'that's disgusting, do you know how many nurses that would pay for' ?

I couldn't be arsed arguing the toss and didn't want to spark a row, but it's such a bogus comparison, if footballers were paid directly from the same NHS budget as nurses they may have a point,but they aren't. If Premier League players had their salaries cut in half, it wouldn't result in a single extra nurse being employed or a single existing nurse getting a single extra penny.

Yes footballers are lavishly well paid, but they aren't paid from the public purse and are paid what the market will stand, at that very top level, those with rare skills are in demand from wealthy business across the world.

And why only footballers and nurses? No one seems to get their knickers in such a twist over the similarly lavish rewards for Formula One Drivers, Tennis and Golf players earn or pontificate on how many teachers could be employed on the basis of Rory McIlroy's earnings, or even other aspects of the entertainment industry? Why do people not get her up by how many social workers could be employed on what Daniel Craig was paid for the last Bond film?

It's a poor argument to compare the two. It's supply & demand & being funded from public & private purses

Do you love them a thousand times more than you love the people who would save your life if you needed it? Probably. We love football in our house.

Top level footballers are rarer than nurses and they generate a hell of a lot more money than nurses so of course they are paid more.
Is it right that we value wealth creation more than public service? Probably not but the ability for someone to make money is the way we judge someone's worth the way capitalism work today.

Do you love them a thousand times more than you love the people who would save your life if you needed it?

Irrelevant because, their rates of pay are wholly unrelated.

Gareth Bale's my favourite. He's worthy every penny.

Irrelevant because, their rates of pay are wholly unrelated

In a real sense yes, in a theoretical sense no. Did you not understand my pp

Top level footballers are rarer than nurses

Exactly, there are far far, more people capable of becoming, say, a practice nurse in a GP surgery, there are people capable of becoming a world-class central midfielder.

Wages reflect scarcity value.

In a real sense yes, in a theoretical sense no. Did you not understand my pp*

I understood it fine well, I just thought it wasn't a particularly good point.

Irrelevant because, their rates of pay are wholly unrelated.

They're unrelated in that one does not influence the other, but they're entirely relevant when comparing inequalities in society. In the latter we are all relevant, we are all members of society.

notevernotnevernotnohow

But a footballers job description does not require them to be educated and intelligent or nice. Although it is very rude to say footballers on the whole are uneducated, not very intelligent and unkind.

I would see your point if the money for both the NHS and Wayne Rooneys wages came from taxes. If the government set and paid footballers wages in the way they do nurses you would be right but that isn't the case.

The 'normal' person on the street going to watch their team play on a Saturday can not control what the club pays them. All the fans will never boycott matches, where they go to enjoy themselves and not buy merchandise etc. They just want to go and watch the football and chill out.

You have basically said educated, intelligent people deserve higher wages. So people who are not academic should know their place at the bottom of the wage bill.....really ? Do you really believe someone with a unique talent in maybe music or art doesn't deserve their wage. Thank god we are in a society where we do not just reward being clever !

And also to say footballers are not nice in an argument about nurses is ironic. Some of the most hard faced, rude, uncaring people I have come into contact with have been nurses. There are of course, many, many lovely nurses as I am sure there are footballers.

I don't like football and don't get the fervent love of it. If you do love it, fine, just don't expect me to.
Without nurses however, my father would be dead.

Some of the most hard faced, rude, uncaring people I have come into contact with have been nurses. There are of course, many, many lovely nurses as I am sure there are footballers. Well said

Footballing has nothing to do with nursing.

TheNaze73
Its a poor argument to compare the two. It's supply & demand & being funded from public & private purses.

Spot on !

I would see your point if the money for both the NHS and Wayne Rooneys wages came from taxes

I don't think you would since I specifically said that the source of their pay is not the point at all.

You have basically said educated, intelligent people deserve higher wages

I said nothing of the sort.

There is such black and white thinking here! Can you not look at things from a philosophical standpoint as well as a practical one?

Gareth Bale's my favourite.

Mine too. Irrelevant contribution.

BoysOfMelody your guest was extremely rude for distracting you from the game with her fucking tedious attempt to be goady. I do hope she fucks off home soon.

Which was the cue for a moan I've heard many times before of: 'that's disgusting, do you know how many nurses that would pay for' ?

This is one of those arguments which is a pretty good guide to someone's ability to think coherently and creatively - if they are making that argument those abilities are not much to shout about.

First of all, since when was it the responsibility of, say, Everton to pay for nurses, or any other public sector worker through means other than their tax contribution?

Secondly, what would those who think footballers are overpaid like to happen to that money? Football clubs generate their income from match day revenue, merchandise, TV rights, sponsorship, licensing and other revenue streams. If footballers are not getting their cut (given that it is being generated on the back of their efforts) what do they think will happen to it? Would they be happier for it to be collected by owners and shareholders?

It's supply & demand & being funded from public & private purses.

And why exactly is the NHS public? Because it's generally recognised in this country that not everything should be left to the vicissitudes of the free market.

The principle of government intervention to ensure what's morally right has been established for some time. No reason why it shouldn't extend to a maximum wage too.

There is an argument to be had that it's bad for a population's mental health to have massive disparities in wealth.

I never said I agreed with footballer salaries, personally I think they're ridiculous. But market forces and capitalism have bugger all to do with morals or ethics.

And I too, have had the misfortune to be 'cared' for by some very hard hearted, uncaring nurses, sadly.

I love how footballer's pay is described 'per week' as if they still have some connection to the 'shop floor'.

Never mind the fact that most factory staff are salaried these days anyway.

I love how footballer's pay is described 'per week' as if they still have some connection to the 'shop floor'.

This was the model used by newspapers to demonstrate to the judgemental and easily outraged just how high salaries in football are - £xxx,000 per week sounds more than £xm per year.

Perhaps the problem here is socialism not capitalism - if medicine was open to market forces perhapd doctors and nurses (or at least some doctors and nurses) would be paid a whole lot more as people had to make genuine value judgements as to where to allocate their money...

Not that there would still be a huge disparity since there are clearly far fewer top footballers than there are nurses or doctors.

In March 2017, across Hospital and Community Healthcare Services (HCHS), the NHS employed (full-time equivalent): 106,430 doctors; 285,893 nurses and health visitors; 21,597 midwives; 132,673 scientific, therapeutic and technical staff; 19,772 ambulance staff; 21,139 managers; and 9,974 senior managers.

www.nhsconfed.org/resources/key-statistics-on-the-nhs
...

There are about 4,000 professional footballers in the UK.

Scarcity is a commodity.

if medicine was open to market forces perhapd doctors and nurses (or at least some doctors and nurses) would be paid a whole lot more as people had to make genuine value judgements as to where to allocate their money

Right. And then you'd have a situation like the US where healthcare prices are astronomical and millions can't afford afford health insurance. Where thousands die every year because they can't afford the doctors' fees.

If, several thousand years ago, the human race had decided to use compression as its unit of exchange, rather than this abstract thing called money, nurses would indeed be paid more than professional footballers. It's a fascinating exercise to think what such a world would be like. (If you like science fiction, search out a book called 'The Shockwave Rider' by John Brunner, the end of which considers exactly this scenario.)

Unfortunately, and probably inevitably, the human race didn't choose that, so we're stuck with things like the law of supply and demand which dictates that those with scare skills that generate huge wodges of the stuff also get paid lots of it. At least I have no interest in football so I don't contribute to it!