Penny for your thoughts?
It's no secret that sports stars are on wage packets that makes the run of the mill labourer green with envy. Argentine maestro Lionel Messi, arguably the most talented player in the world, allegedly rakes in over £8m per annum in salary alone. Advertisements and endorsements would no doubt further bulk out the Barcelona star's wallet by no small amount. Other top players, such as Real Madrid's flamboyant winger Christiano Ronaldo, or former England Captain David Beckham are also lucky enough to bring home inordinate sums of money after a hard day's kicking a ball around. And the inflated wages are by no means limited to the worlds upper echelon's of footballing talent- with Blackburn Rover's former player Christopher Samba reportedly on a weekly wage of around £100,000 at new club Anzhi Makhachkala. Despite the high wages, the Congolese central defender claims the move to Russia was not financially motivated. As it is, the 28 year old stated that his reasons for moving were to link up with respected manager Guus Hiddink, and to further his career - a career he felt had stalled at struggling Blackburn.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic has been in the news almost incessantly over the last few days, with Paris Saint Germain keen to add another to their marquee acquirements. Former Napoli winger Ezequiel Lavezzi and Zlatan's old AC Milan colleague Thiago Silva already making the move to Ligue 1. Reports coming out on Tuesday indicate that the big Swede has agreed personal terms with the French giants. Personal terms that would quite possibly make the 30 year old forward the highest paid player in football. It has been suggested that, with an annual salary of almost £12m a year, Ibrahimovic will be earning almost £25.5k in just one day - which is more than his average countryman would make in an entire year.
The UEFA Financial Fair Play rules are due to come into effect some, but some clubs do not seem overly worried by the restrictions that will come into place. Both Chelsea and PSG have been spending money like it's going out of fashion. Whether or not teh new rules will put a curb to the spending or not remains to be seem, but for now players like Zlatan can enjoy their football, content in the fact that their bank balance could fund a small country.
The inflated wages and transfer fees on offer from some of the world's richest clubs seen these days are becoming more and more common. It is a stark contrast to Cyprus' first division side APOEL FC. The diminutive club represent their country in the Champions League, Europe's most elite competition. APOEL had their most successful run in Europe last season, progressing as far of the quarter finals - topping their group and knocking out Olympique Lyonnais, becoming the first Cypriot club to ever make it that far in the prestigious competition. They were eventually knocked out at the quarter finals by an aggregate score of 8-2 in favour of Real Madrid. Even though their fairytale was at an end, it was no small feat by the club - whom most fans of European football may not have even heard of before hand. APOEL may not have any Messi's or Ronaldo's in their ranks, but they shown to the European community that sometimes it's not the dog in the fight, but the fight in the dog.
APOEL's impressive journey did well to illustrate that money is not everything in the world of football. While the more successful clubs do tend to be the one's with the money, with mega-rich Manchester City winning teh English Premier League for the first time in the club's history being just one example. The Cypriot's proved that this isn't always teh case, top earning talents don't always equate to victory. In fact, the club's entire yearly budget - not just for player wages and transfers, but for pitch maintenance, medical fees and any other expenses - tallied up to around £10m. For an average person, that's an awful lot of money, yet still less than some of footballer's highest earners. Kudos to APOEL on a job werll done, achieving so much on so little, proving that it's not always just about the money.
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