Coining It In

Martin Keown’s testimonial made the news last night mostly because of David Beckham’s appearance, but it struck me as all a wee bit unnecessary.

When players have testimonials they traditionally receive a large slice of the gate receipts, as a thank you for 10 years service. Since last night’s game at Highbury was a sell-out, Keown would have pocketed close to £1million. This is the bit that bothers me.

In this day, where between £80,000 and £100,000 is an average monthly salary for a top-flight footballer — why do they need another huge windfall? I don’t think testimonials should be stopped, but it’d be great to see more take the stance of Niall Quinn, who, a few years ago, donated all the money from gate receipts to charity — good on yer Niall!

Posted 5 years, 9 months ago

But as a footballer, your career generally ends at 30, unless you have any sort of charisma, and then you can head into TV. Oh, and cocaine is really expensive at the moment ;)

Andrew · www · 5 years, 9 months ago

True, but I reckon they earn enough in 10 or 12 years of professional football to see them through for life. Certainly the top players anyway. If you worked at a company for 10 years, they wouldn’t suddenly give you a whole years salary as a ‘gift’. Maybe it’s just envy, but I think the whole testimonial thing is badly flawed.

Phil · www · 5 years, 9 months ago

I read somewhere Keown is gonna give half the money to charity.

mars · 5 years, 9 months ago

Ah - fair dues if that is the case. I was just getting something of my chest ;-)

Phil · www · 5 years, 9 months ago

How much do average footballers in europe really deserve?

EMY · 5 years, 4 months ago

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My name is Phil Lindsay, a web guy from Scotland, now living in Newcastle upon Tyne in England. I also run a web design company called Presence. You can email me at phil@xlab.co.uk, read more ramblings on my Twitter stream and view my photos on Flickr. You can grab the RSS feed for this weblog here.