Reply to: Jeremy Corbyn suggests maximum earnings limit

[LondonManc]

Not sure the crowds would drop...United used to be packed in the 80's when they were tulipe!

Some short memories here. May 89 - we beat Wimbledon thanks to a late goal from Choccy with a crowd of less than 25k. That said, we did hit 40k+ most of the time but the advent of ticket only matches and season ticket percentages vastly increasing have changed the fluctuations in crowds. We're also talking about an era when it was based on actual attendance rather than tickets sold too.

That said, you're looking at an era when, despite there being so many local blues, City only averaged 23k gates.

Still, as for the topic, surely it's an infringement of free trade if you limit earnings to £1m per person?

[filthy1980]

Yeah, but he's not on PAYE is he? It's going to be going mostly to Rooney Inc, registered somewhere beneficial.

... and why do footballers insist on stating how much they get per week? Is it a vain attempt to cling to their "working class roots"?

I think players salaries are paid via PAYE (there's been a number of leaked players payslips)

it's the "image rights" which get paid to an incorporated entity somewhere

[BoredBloke]

Not sure the crowds would drop...United used to be packed in the 80's when they were tulipe!

[OwlHoot]

So instead of taxing wealthy with 45% tax, you'd prefer them not to earn as much or earn in another country, so that all people who pay 20-40% will have to pay a LOT more to make up for the revenue shortfall? The budget is very heavily dependent on top earners now. If they ain't earning, then HMRC won't be taxing 'em.

It's no use trying to argue rationally with a dyed in the wool socialist.

You'd have more luck trying to teach a baboon quantum field theory.

[Moose423956]

Labour under Corbyn is in so much crap it's not even funny anymore.

Oh, it is. It makes me laugh anyway.

[LondonManc]

Yeah, but he's not on PAYE is he? It's going to be going mostly to Rooney Inc, registered somewhere beneficial.

... and why do footballers insist on stating how much they get per week? Is it a vain attempt to cling to their "working class roots"?

Footballers don't state it, it's published information.

[tomtomagain]

Rooney's on £250k a week

Yeah, but he's not on PAYE is he? It's going to be going mostly to Rooney Inc, registered somewhere beneficial.

... and why do footballers insist on stating how much they get per week? Is it a vain attempt to cling to their "working class roots"?

[LondonManc]

They are very loyal to the club but it's a tortured relationship full of contradictions. Football fans LOVE bitching about their players, their manager, the commercialisation of football, the price of tickets, etc. The club transcends the manager and the players, perfectly possible to be loyal to the club but seeth about the rich ponces on the field.

So you think Ronaldo has the slightest desire to engage with the pot-bellied, heavily tattooed UKIP stereotypes who epitomise the supporters of some clubs (Newcastle for instance)? He surely appreciates them at an abstract level but doesn't want to go anywhere near them.

The tension between players and supporters goes both ways at the top level.

You don't half love to make stuff up to suit, do you?


Every supporter wants their club to do well. I never backed Moyes because he wasn't the right man for the job from the start but I backed Van Gaal; unfortunately he didn't work out, despite winning the FA Cup. That doesn't mean I hated Moyes; I pitied him to some extent but that was tempered by knowing how much he was stealing a living.

If you limit footballers to £1m a year, where's the shortfall in tax and NI coming from? Rooney's on £250k a week - let's say an approx. roll up of £13m a year. Take £12m a year worth of taxable income of his out of the government coffers. Then for the £100k a week footballers, and there are many, and that's an extra £4m in taxable income, per footballer, that you're denying the coffers.

Then consider that crowds will drop. That will affect all staff, including reductions in employees and ancilliary staff that support local business on match days. The Boleyn pub itself looks likely to go out of business since West Ham moved - I'd imagine that many pubs in the areas of clubs will see a significant hit in revenue as crowds drop to levels from the 80s. Not only that but the FA wouldn't have the money to invest in top coaches, who would simply go abroad and earn more in China, USA, etc., let alone the lucrative European markets.

You, like Corbyn, have had a complete brainfart about an industry that you don't understand.

[tomtomagain]

No, effectively he wants 100% tax on those who earn more than £138k per year

And obviously unearned income (everything else) will be taxed at same levels, like it happened in the past.

I heard him on the radio this morning ( 5Live I think ). It wasn't even why he was really on the programme to talk about. Interviewer fed him a line, he came up with this idea of a cap.

Interviewer said "Martin Sorrell earned £70M last year" ... Corbyn started blathering on "70Million! What would you do with that! 70Million!!!"

If I hadn't been driving I would have bashed my head against the wall.

Not only did he show a complete lack of imagination but he couldn't then answer any specific questions on it ... because he hasn't got any answers. Because it's not Labour policy. They haven't done the work required to launch it.

I am not media-trained but even I know you shouldn't be making up policy on national radio.

Corbyn is a protester. Champion of the poor, scourge of the rich. But that's all he is. It's easy to protest. It's far harder to change things.

[AtW]

What is he proposing? That we have a 100% tax rate on people earning over £2M a year? Or a tax rate on rate at 100% on dividends too? How about all those boomers in the SE living out their dottage in £1M plus houses? They didn't do anything to deserve that, just got lucky.

No, effectively he wants 100% tax on those who earn more than £138k per year

And obviously unearned income (everything else) will be taxed at same levels, like it happened in the past.

[tomtomagain]

This is yet another unworkable brain-fart from Corybn. Along the lines of his comments that "Going for a beer after work should be banned" from a couple of months back.

What is he proposing? That we have a 100% tax rate on people earning over £2M a year? Or a tax rate on rate at 100% on dividends too? How about all those boomers in the SE living out their dottage in £1M plus houses? They didn't do anything to deserve that, just got lucky.

The guy is a fool. There may be some merit in the idea ( we can debate that another day ), but he's supposed to be taking back the initiative on BREXIT and finally trying to bridge that yawning chasm that has opened up between Labours traditional voters and the party by acknowledging the impact of unrestricted migration on working-class communities .... and proposing what to do about that.

Instead he's given the media an open-goal on something that isn't even Labour party policy, it's just him "floating" the idea. An idea that he hasn't thought through in the detail required and one suspects would only really interest some hard-left Trotskyist.

Labour under Corbyn is in so much crap it's not even funny anymore.

[AtW]

I agree with that and Corbyn is the only politician who can drive this. We need to ensure everybody in the country has a minimum income coming in and it should be revised with inflation. This should be funded by increased taxation. The taxation levels are a disgrace at the moment.

So instead of taxing wealthy with 45% tax, you'd prefer them not to earn as much or earn in another country, so that all people who pay 20-40% will have to pay a LOT more to make up for the revenue shortfall? The budget is very heavily dependent on top earners now. If they ain't earning, then HMRC won't be taxing 'em.

[d000hg]

You clearly haven't a clue about football (but we figured that out in the previous paragraph). Fans don't have a love-hate relationship with their team at all. For most, it's the ultimate brand loyalty. If Nescafe go under, people would buy Douwe Egberts instead - if your club goes under, you would never feel the same affection for another team (and I'm not including the glory hunters who are now Man City fans who previously were Chelsea fans and probably Arsenal fans before that).

They are very loyal to the club but it's a tortured relationship full of contradictions. Football fans LOVE bitching about their players, their manager, the commercialisation of football, the price of tickets, etc. The club transcends the manager and the players, perfectly possible to be loyal to the club but seeth about the rich ponces on the field.

As for players despising fans, they appreciate them, believe me. I've met a fair few professionals and only a small minority had disappeared up their own behinds but they're generally the ones in it for the money rather than the success anyway.

So you think Ronaldo has the slightest desire to engage with the pot-bellied, heavily tattooed UKIP stereotypes who epitomise the supporters of some clubs (Newcastle for instance)? He surely appreciates them at an abstract level but doesn't want to go anywhere near them.

The tension between players and supporters goes both ways at the top level.

[WTFH]

And there's the rub. Privatised football is big business, big to the point that the nationalised version is a joke.
The national team in England will only improve when the private teams start to play with more local players, stop bringing in immigrants to do jobs that Brits could do, and stop suckling on Murdoch's teat.

[LondonManc]

I don't think most Labour voters would mind this. You just spin it as making football less about corporate interest, obscene salaries and rich foreigners making money out of the beautiful game and focus on how it will mean English teams will end up full of English players again.

Rubbish. Football will simply move abroad - Italy had it big in the 80s and 90s because they had the money. The Premier League and Sky brought money into the English game and has given us the most competitive of the big leagues - Man United and Liverpool don't dominate in the way that they would if they were like Barcelona and Real Madrid in Spain. Look at China - Tevez has just signed a deal for 615k per week. You'd simply have all players leaving the country. I know of a Stoke City reserve player who's on 20k per week, which would take him past the £1m maximum figure.

Fans often have a love-hate relationship with their team. The fact their team is made up of millionaires with beautiful hair who despise the working class fans wouldn't be hard to play on surely

You clearly haven't a clue about football (but we figured that out in the previous paragraph). Fans don't have a love-hate relationship with their team at all. For most, it's the ultimate brand loyalty. If Nescafe go under, people would buy Douwe Egberts instead - if your club goes under, you would never feel the same affection for another team (and I'm not including the glory hunters who are now Man City fans who previously were Chelsea fans and probably Arsenal fans before that).

As for players despising fans, they appreciate them, believe me. I've met a fair few professionals and only a small minority had disappeared up their own behinds but they're generally the ones in it for the money rather than the success anyway.