Whether it's true or not, the interview raised lots of good points.
I've been amazed for years to hear ordinary punters say stuff like "he's only on £60k per week" when discussing footballers pay, and as the player says, almost fighting on their behalf like they are deserving of public sympathy.
Most people simply have no idea what salaries at that level look like, what they mean after tax and what you can actually buy with that amount of money, which arrives every month, without fail for the duration of the contract.
I've pretty much tuned out of football for the last 3 weeks and to be honest, every day that passes, the less it means to me, and the more grotesque it all looks. It is an artificial bubble created by inflated TV deals that are paid for by subscribers in one way or another, and while you can argue that the handful of elite players are paid according to the rarity of their talent, there's a fuckload of average players, even more average agents and other hangers on such as "pundits" collecting huge amounts for doing fuck all.
Stop paying for football on the telly and burst the bubble. The game will survive, it's just the people within it that need to recalibrate their expectations. Ask yourself this: If the most a player could earn playing for Liverpool and the rest of the top teams was reduced by 95%, do you think it would stop all the kids around the world wearing Liverpool kits from wanting to play for Liverpool? Would the kids be saying naaa, I can only earn £500,000 a year, that's not enough for me.
