Is that amazing, nowaday the professional footballer has to watch himself over the summer holidays. That means they hardly get time to really relax in the course of their profssional careers.

Might have to credit them with a touch more respect.

I think I could watch myself over the summer holidays for 50k a week.

What a tough old life is it

But when you've watched yourself and been careful for the 48 weeks prior, you'd want to let yourself go a little bit in those 4 weeks off. It might not sound like such a hard life but these guys do put a lot of effort into taking care of themselves. They sacrifice a lot in their lives in order for them to be able to earn the £50k a week.

and so they should as professional footballers surely?

Ohhhh get over it - their jobs are fun and ours aren't and they earn elephantine amounts of money, but seriously football is its own little world and thats why we love it oh so much.

It takes most people two or three years to earn what these lads earn in a week. Thats if you are fortunate enough to have a job.
These highly overpaid sportsmen 'work' for perhaps 15yrs at most and by then have more than enough to live comfortably for the rest of their lives and many use their contacts to remain at well paid jobs within the game.
Get a grip men. Dawson made me cry all the way to the Post Office to collect my pension.
It will be 2019 before I collect what some of these boys earn in a week.
Their wages are ridiculous and when it comes down to it immoral.So spare me the 'they have a tough life' nonsense.

Should you not be rewarded for having a talent and also the ability to constantly look after yourself for the best part of 20 years in order to sustain it at the top level? We see so many talented people who abuse their opportunities, talent and their pay so surely those that do it properly should be rewarded?

These people are professionals. Anyone who is a professional (surgeons, lawyers etc) are generally paid more than the average Joe and the average 9-5 job. When we finish work at 5pm on a Friday, we can go to the pub and get legless - footballers cant. Yes they get paid handsomely, but they sacrifice a lot too. What they get paid is all relative to the market in which they work.

The rewards are quite out of proportion to the abilities, talent and contribution to society. Personally I would like to see a maximum wage throughout society of maybe £1000 per week.
They sacrifice nothing whatsoever.If you regard not getting legless as a sacrifice then you have a warped view of what enjoying yourself is.
You are surely having a laugh when you say that footballers don't get 'legless' in any case. Ledley 'Do you know who I am' King anyone?

Well I dont think that they DONT make sacrifices. Not being a professional athlete myself I admit I can't make an informed judgement on their lives. However, Im sure that all professional sportsmen and women have made, and continue to make, some kind of sacrifice in order to ensure that they can continue at the top of their game. Put it this way, none of us working an average 9 to 5 can walk into a professional football club and start playing.

On another note, I do agree with you that there should be some form of universal wage cap, if that's the sort of thing you're thinking about. I dont like the fact that someone like Man City can offer a player 4 times what the likes of Spurs can just to ensure they get the player and we dont.

I said 'throughout society' but that includes football.
We all make choices in our lives and sometimes forgo immediate benefits for longer term gains or the hope of longer term gains.
I think we are haggling over the word 'sacrifice' here.If you want to enjoy the benefits of being a proffessional sportsman you have to accept in theory a more disciplined life or you wont be succesful and reap the rewards of enjoying exploiting your talent and getting highly paid for it.
Not many top footballers could walk in and do the jobs that most of us do or did and many people could have chosen the proffesional sport route as you will know from your own schoolmates but for various reasons did not.
The only three players that I came across at school who made the grade proffesionally were not by any means the best footballers ( or cricketers in one case) but may well have had other attributes that made them succeed or a singlemindedness caused by a lack of other choices.
We all make sacrifices and in terms of reward footballers at the highest level are more than compensated for them.