With objections too numerous to enumerate, and with arguments too obvious to argue, and for reasons to reasonable to rationalise, the following report of the financial activities of Manchester City FC are morally unacceptable. Not singling this Premier League English club out, (so I've shown Chelsea players – apparently one on £150,000 per week) just offering an example of ludicrous extravagance that is so morally compromised it is hard to get any ethical handle on it. Please place the figures below ( the published audit figures popularised for public consumption) alongside the realities of poverty and struggle for individual people who are unemployed, chronically unwell, single parents, or low income families. And then recall the Amos vision of a just society, preceded throughout his prophecy by harsh questions to the extravagant grinders of the poor, and luxuriating mega-rich on their Bentley sofas – ok forgive the anachronism:
But let justice roll down like waters
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
"The figures also show details of City's astonishing spending spree on players and salaries which have led to record losses of £121.3million. Although City's turnover increased by 40% to £125m this has been swamped by total salary costs of £133.3m, a £50m rise on a year ago.
The annual report also shows that the club's net spending on transfers has totalled a staggering £403m since 2008. City's net spending this summer was £96.6m – they actually spent around £126m but recouped £30m from the sale of Robinho and other players.
As of June 1 2009, £185.2m had been spent on transfers and this was followed by a further £145.4m in the following 12 months offset by sales totalling £24m.
The good news for City is that their turnover has also risen hugely, mainly due to a large increase in commercial income, from £87m to £125m."
Sometimes the politics of envy is a morally defensible position. I covet the money that pours Niagara-like into football -not for myself.
I wonder what difference it might make to a hundred families to have the equivalent of the cost for one of those famous celebrity / footballer parties?
Or the difference it would make to the hospice provision in this country if for a year ten footballers decided to take their £100,000 per week every second week and donate the alternating payment. Daft maths I know but we are talking daft maths anyway. The answer is £26,000,000 give or take.
I'm not blaming the footballers – I am asking about the ethical maturity of a culture that has no problem with such daft maths. And I'm not pointing the finger as if I stood outside all this nonsense – I am part of a society that has lost its sense of proprotion, that has mislaid its capacity to measure value, that long ago silenced its ethical klaxons where money is concerned, that lives in a cultural world where virtual fantasies about being mega-rich occlude the counter-experience of many for whom poverty and lost life-chances are not a virtual but a real nightmare. The published finances of a football club such as those quoted above are worth considering alongside the massive cuts about to affect many vulnerable people in our society.
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