Footballer's Wages

In a recent statement, Manchester City’s midfield superstar Kevin De Bruyne revealed that he is currently in talks with his club to extend his contract. This contract will most likely come with an increase in wages, which is quite unbelievable considering that he currently earns a whopping £280,000 a week.

What is even more astonishing is that De Breuyne’s wages are not all that impressive when compared to other world class players. Lionel Messi, who has the highest wages the world, earns more than £500,000 a week, which is almost twice of what De Breuyne earns.

This does not mean that every footballer earns up to £200,000 a week. On average, a premier league player earns £33,000 week, which is still an impressive amount. Especially if you compare that to a footballer's wages in the 1960, which was around £20 a week.

But how did it get to that?

The massive change in wages happened largely due to the top english league being reformed into thein 1992. One the surface, the only change was that it was now called the Premier League. But in fact, it brought upon many other changes, including footballers wages.

The reason as to why the english top league had to be reformed was simply because football was becoming more mainstream. Meaning that more people wanted to watch football. This was mainly due to the fact that watching football on television was now the norm. This also meant that the network that had the rights to show top tier football matches, would immediately become the most popular in the country.

This led to a fierce competition between broadcasting networks, with two main bidders being Skysports and ITV. They eventually ended up sharing the rights, with Sky Sports getting the largest amount by paying £190,000,000 which was an insane amount of money at that time. And because more money was now being put into the industry, the players demanding better wages.