One constant in the soccer world is that player salaries and transfer fees are growing more and more rapidly. In the top leagues, more TV money equals more money for players and the top players are getting very, very rich.
In the transfer world, it was unheard of for a team to spend $30 million for a player. Now, Paris Saint-Germain just broke the transfer record, spending more than $250 million to Barcelona for Neymar. That’s just to get the man, they still need to spend money to sign him and that won’t come cheap either.
Pretty much, there’s a lot of money flying around and if that’s how it has to be, Manchester United midfielder Juan Mata wants to make sure at least a tiny part of player’s pay is going to the needy.
Mata is trying to get players to voluntarily give 1% of their salary into a collective fund called “Common Goal” which is a group consisting of 120 charities in 80 countries around the world. Mata as well as the entire Manchester United team is doing this and Mata is hoping this becomes a trend.
1% may seem like an incredibly small amount but if you consider that if a starter in a top Premier League team makes $400,000/week, that equals $4,000/week going to charity from one player. Multiply that by 52 and that’s $208,000/year. Compare that to $20,800,000 that player would be getting that year, $208k may sound like a lot but Mata’s point is that 1% of someone’s salary isn’t that noticeable over a year. And, it’s not like this will stop anyone from donating money to other charities elsewhere.
Mata is hoping that this translates into something that FIFA and the confederations can utilize with transfer fees because that would be a goldmine for charity. For instance, Neymar’s transfer alone would be worth over $2.5 million for charity. And considering the Premier League alone is going to blow past the £1 billion ($1.303 billion) mark, that would mean at least $13 million goes to charity.
Obviously, there’s some things to consider that make every professional soccer player unable to donate. For instance, while the top leagues worldwide pay players lots of money, that’s not always the case in the vast majority of countries around the world. Either players aren’t being paid a lot or teams are unable to pay them or both and even if the money is going to charity, it would be bad to ask them to donate 1% of their salary if they aren’t getting paid much. You wouldn’t require someone to donate money if they had a job that paid minimum wage, it’s a similar situation here.
Either way, at least Juan Mata’s heart is in the right place. Maybe if we know that 1% of these big deals is going to charity, we wouldn’t be so outraged when we see some of these astronomical numbers for these world class players. It’s a win-win for the needy, the team and the player.
