Do we, the humble, impoverished, post-Brexit, austerity-ridden football fans, do we ‘mind’ that our football players earn more money in a year than most of us earn in a lifetime? Do we care that an uneducated Serbian midfielder with a mohican haircut and an armful of tattoos, who can’t spell his own name without help and still has several rape charges outstanding in his homeland, do we care that he earns 20 times more money than the most skilful heart surgeon?

It doesn’t matter if we mind or not, its the way it is. Because of the immense amount of, mainly tv, cash floating round our national sport, the star players demand and get their slice of that rather immense, Bruce Bogtrotterish sized cake. And do we mind? Well, as a general rule, we don’t mind ‘our’ players earning telephone number weekly wages, they’re adored and thus ‘worth every penny’. But the players from other clubs? No, they’re never worth it. Pogba on 300k a week? Ridiculous. Ibrahimavic? Same money for sitting in the physio’s room. Alexis Sanchez? Mezut Ozil?? Both demanding ‘parity with Pogba’; fucking joke.

Which remains rather unfunny for Spurs fans. Because Spurs have always refused to pay outrageous salaries. Which accounts for the distinct lack of Euro-royalty type star names at our club. We don’t buy Barcelona rejects because they won’t take a cut in a disproportionate salary that it would take to get them on board. Because if you pay one player 250 grand a week, then, quite understandably, all the others will ask ‘why not me??’ Then fuck off to Manchester City who’ll pay any player any amount. So the ‘austerity model’ we use at Spurs means we can always lose players who’ll be lured away by promises of a better 3 Bentleys than the 2 they currently own, more diamond earrings, bobbles, baubles and fire-water. Oh, and several multi-million pound properties.

But we do mind the ‘agents’. We all mind them a lot. Because they are parasites and bottom-feeding scum. And so-called ‘super-agents’ are the worst of all.

Mino Raiola allegedly pocketed 41 million quid when Pogba went to Old Trafford. They reckon he was guilty of ‘TPO’. Third Party Ownership, in which the playing rights, rather than being ‘owned’ by the player’s former club, are actually owned, maybe just in part, by the agent himself. (Could be herself, but its generally fat Italian men.) A process made illegal after the Rio Ferdinand scandalous departure from Leeds and when Mascherano and Tevez moved to West Ham. Agents can’t ‘own’ players. That’s slavery.

We should shoot all agents (super-agents need to die much more slowly), introduce salary caps and get players back on the buses. Like the old days. Twenty quid a week and a free packet of Players Number Six. Then they’d at least appreciate the cost of tattoos.

I fear the game I love dearly has become an obscene money-go-round.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx