The sports minister, Gerry Sutcliffe, has branded John Terry’s salary ‘obscene’. Sutcliffe also attacked Chelski’s general attitude to cash. He said: ‘Good luck to John Terry but I think it is obscene to be on £150,000 a week,’ said Sutcliffe. ‘People in the street cannot understand salaries like that. Chelsea are £250m in the red and they may be able to cope with that but it’s not the real world. £250m in the red is not sustainable.’
Does Sutcliffe have a point? You can’t blame Terry for being paid that much – who ever turned down a better salary for no reason? That’s the way the market is, and I’m pretty sure that A-list Hollywood stars, for example, get more than the vast majority of footballers, and for doing much less work.
For the record, Chelsea are reportedly unhappy with Sutcliffe’s comments (no surprise), partly because JT doesn’t actually earn that much – the real figure is thought to be more like £130,000 a week. Oh, that’s alright then…