Is there too much money in football?

Footballers earn millions of dollars while billions live in poverty

Question: Is there too much money in football?
Position1 of 2›: Yes, there's too much money in football
Argument‹3 of 4›: Footballers earn millions of dollars while billions live in poverty

The world's best footballers make millions of pounds in a single year. This is more money than anyone could need and would be better spent going towards the less well-off.

The argument

At the end of the day, football players - and sports players in general - are entertainers. They put on a game for spectators to enjoy. While a real competition exists, ultimately it serves as entertainment to a wider audience. And indeed, this entertainment is popular. But do these players really deserve to be paid millions of dollars for this entertainment? Especially when, by contrast, a vast quantity of equally, if not more deserving people live in poverty? Why do people who kick or occasionally throw a ball get to live in mansions, while janitors, farmers, and electricians struggle to make ends meet? Why do entertainers roll in dough while teachers and some doctors get chump change for critical services? Why do a select few get all this money, while the common people continue to suffer? Just because these players are popular, it doesn't justify this unfair system. To be sure, football players are extremely talented. And yes, they work incredibly hard. But there are so many others with the same kind of talent and drive doing more important work than entertaining a crowd or chasing a trophy. Why do they not only not get as much, but get so little? In light of this, the amount of money footballers make is quite unfair.

Premises

[P1]Footballers are ultimately entertainers, yet they earn millions and live in mansions while janitors, farmers, teachers and even some doctors doing more essential work struggle to make ends meet. [P2] Talent and hard work alone don't justify this gap, because many people with equal talent and drive do more important work for a fraction of the pay. [C] Therefore footballers earning millions while billions live in poverty shows there is too much money in football.

Counter-arguments

It's true that people ought to earn enough to make a decent living. And it's true that people like doctors and teachers ought to be better appreciated for the work they do. These are issues that should and can be addressed. But football has nothing to do with them. At the end of the day, football profits so much because it's popular, because it's what the people want. Owners and corporations wouldn't pour so much money into their clubs if no one cared about football. But as it is, people care so much about football that it drives this economic process. What the people want is where the money goes; that's just how the free market economy works.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Comparing footballers' pay with teachers' identifies an inequality in the wider economy, and the premise never connects it to football: no mechanism is offered by which lower wages at clubs would raise pay elsewhere. [Rejecting P2] Desert is not what sets pay in any labour market, and the counter's point stands — the revenue comes from what audiences choose to spend, so the object of complaint is the distribution the market produces rather than the sport, and the argument never says what the right figure would be.