Options on how much allowance per week for teenage son?

[Melaniet10]

Hello,

I have a teenage son age 17 going to be 18 in a few months time.
He goes to college 4 days a week and plays semi professional sport for a team most weekends. We have agreed that if he commits to the sport 100% and attends training and games on the weekend we will give him an allowance of 40 quid a week as he would be unable to get a part time job. the sport isn't sponsored and we pay around 450-850 quid for away tournaments and has 2 each year. We always have food in the house for him so he doesn't need to buy lunch or any travel cost as his college is up the road, he does have a girlfriend who doesn't live in the same city and spends most of his money travelling to see her 4 hours away or paying for her to come to stay with us in london and taking her out for dinners at restaurants and he complains that he is poor! We don't feel like the allowance is working out and is manipulating the situation by not going to training sometimes to see his gf. He does not help out around the house and has be to be told to do basic chores like picking up after himself. Is this allowance too much? What do people give their 17 year olds??
Any help would be great!
Thanks

He could work in the evenings or on his day off college if he wants more money. He might think that's unfair but unfortunately that's life.

£40 a week sounds quite a lot to me. He should be helping around the house as part of earning that, Also if you said you would give it to him if he was 100% committed to his sport, he should not get it if he misses training days.

I give my daughter who is 17 £50.00 a month and she earns £30-£50 a week depending on the hours she works for her part time job.

Yes he should have a job. D's 16 gets £40 a month and is applying for a Sunday/evening job.

Way too much money and not enough mucking in. He is a member of your family, almost an adult and yet he doesn't even pick up after himself! I firmly believe that it's part of our job as parents to prepare our children for the big wide world and that doesn't just mean formal education, it means washing, cooking tidying etc.

My three aged between 12 and 15 wash all their school uniform, load/unload the dishwasher and do one household job ie. Hoovering a week in exchange for £10 per week and iPhone contracts. Ok they are younger, but my eldest has just finished gcse's and I won't be putting her money up to £40 pm in the next couple of years, how will that teach her the value of money?

That is a lot of allowance. He needs to look for a job on a night. If his girlfriend lives so far away I'm assuming he will be free to work on an evening?

forty pounds would be okay if he did some laundry, cleaning and gardening - acting like a near adult member of the family.
He's taking a loan of you if he basically expects to be waited on hand and foot and has one weekday entirely free!
Why doesn't he get a part time job and use the free day for study? Is he getting a job over the summer or is he going to have a lovely long break while you go out to work and continue to do all the household chores?

What is the long term prospects for his sport? He's at a point where maybe he has to decide his priorities.

He's prioritising GF over sport (which is fine, but changes the balance of why you support him).

Thank you all so much for the responses!

It's his first gf, his sport was always his first love and so his priorities has changed since having a gf, he says that he is still committed to the sport and that he wants to take it to pro level, we have told him that if he doesn't do the sport then he will need to get a part time job, I feel he is agreeing to the sport because it's an easy option!

Keep the responses coming, I'm so intrigued and it's an insight for me as we don't have friends who have kids this age to talk to.

Also he does have weekday evenings free other then 1 training session so working in evenings is a good idea.