2023 Summer transfer window - hopes, needs, expectations and rumours.

[charlatan]

I think that virtually everyone thinks that medical professionals and firemen etc should be paid far more for what they do.

I also think the vast majority think that footballers should be paid less.

We know who the real heroes are.

Do you vote with your feet on footballers' pay or are you part of the problem?

[charlatan]

Absolutely.

We are a society that values someone who can kick a ball infinitely more than we value a paramedic who will save our lives, or a firefighter who risks their life to save ours.

No we're not.

The TV companies do.

Because you have no interest in paying them to show you paramedics or firefighters in action (or generally in inaction in the latter case).

To be fair, I've stayed out of this one, but please don't be having a go at the emergency services, mate. It's not on.

I'm not having a go at anyone. Clearly supply and demand dictates they will get paid less than elite sportsmen in professional sports in which public interest is high. If hardly anybody was brave enough to be a firefighter or put up with the conditions of being a paramedic they would get paid more. See what happened with lorry drivers recently. Also as Ads suggests above the skills required to work in the emergency services are more readily attainable. It's not that everyone can attain them, but that there isn't a ruthless system for sorting the top few thousand most talented and throwing the rest on the scrap heap.

(Doctors are an interesting case though: many potential medics are turned away because we don't train enough of them domestically, a situation replicated in many western countries as I understand it. Maybe the public would be happy with a larger pool of doctors of a lower average standard getting paid less (given the lack of a supply constraint) to dispense advice/treatment more swiftly. Or maybe lower wages would mean lots more doctors leaving the UK and we'd be training lots of people to earn more overseas while our effective domestic supply didn't rise much. Or maybe the government would have employed the minimum number and waiting times would be just as bad, so we'd be paying less for lower quality advice....)

Or maybe 'the market' doesn't have all the fucking answers.

So what's the alternative here?

[RamboandBruno]

Absolutely.

We are a society that values someone who can kick a ball infinitely more than we value a paramedic who will save our lives, or a firefighter who risks their life to save ours.

No we're not.

The TV companies do.

Because you have no interest in paying them to show you paramedics or firefighters in action (or generally in inaction in the latter case).

To be fair, I've stayed out of this one, but please don't be having a go at the emergency services, mate. It's not on.

I'm not having a go at anyone. Clearly supply and demand dictates they will get paid less than elite sportsmen in professional sports in which public interest is high. If hardly anybody was brave enough to be a firefighter or put up with the conditions of being a paramedic they would get paid more. See what happened with lorry drivers recently. Also as Ads suggests above the skills required to work in the emergency services are more readily attainable. It's not that everyone can attain them, but that there isn't a ruthless system for sorting the top few thousand most talented and throwing the rest on the scrap heap.

(Doctors are an interesting case though: many potential medics are turned away because we don't train enough of them domestically, a situation replicated in many western countries as I understand it. Maybe the public would be happy with a larger pool of doctors of a lower average standard getting paid less (given the lack of a supply constraint) to dispense advice/treatment more swiftly. Or maybe lower wages would mean lots more doctors leaving the UK and we'd be training lots of people to earn more overseas while our effective domestic supply didn't rise much. Or maybe the government would have employed the minimum number and waiting times would be just as bad, so we'd be paying less for lower quality advice....)

A flaw in your argument is there isn’t enough nurses, and other public sector workers, because generally the conditions of employment and pay are utter shite. The Government regularly instead churns out crap insinuating about vocational pride, our NHS heroes, who we don’t deem worthy enough to pay wages high enough to be able to afford a mortgage in a lot of the towns and cities they work in. The premier league football debate is a diversion and the obscene wages are funded by a combination of the media, hedge funds, billionaires and now nation states.
The wages of public sector workers who help to keep us alive and ticking over are about Government choices and how they priorities as much as anything else. I know first hand what a nurse of many years experience gets paid and for the most part unless there is a move into managerial roles, its £30k a year or less, you can earn more literally in some call centre or supermarket jobs and Im not being disparaging to those workers, but they don’t help to keep us well.
We are not as a country overflowing with nurses or teachers, with supply outstripping demand, you only have to visit a hospital or look at the stats on new entrants into teaching training too see the supply demand argument is completely flawed.

[Sexual Ealing]

I'm not biting again. You're boring, as would be my alternatives.

[Monty]

The UK pays medical staff less than other countries where, I notice, footballers are also rich.

I mean I'm as confused as anybody.

[Risso]

Football is a global industry where there aren't many barriers in terms of selling the product and employees moving freely from country to country. Whatever people on here assign as a value to footballers or surgeons, all the time the Premier League is being sold abroad for billions then the players are going to earn astronomical amounts. The only alternative would be for the Premier League to disband, stop selling rights abroad and for us to go back to a parochial lower league standard of football. Entertainers have always earned huge amounts in comparison to more "worthy" careers. Jarvis Cocker, Bruce Springsteen and Damon Albarn will just have earned a few million quid each for a couple of hours of singing songs they wrote 30 years ago to tens of thousands of people.

[coreyfeldman]

Sooooooo, transfers anyone?

[charlatan]

A flaw in your argument is there isn’t enough nurses, and other public sector workers, because generally the conditions of employment and pay are utter shite. The Government regularly instead churns out crap insinuating about vocational pride, our NHS heroes, who we don’t deem worthy enough to pay wages high enough to be able to afford a mortgage in a lot of the towns and cities they work in. The premier league football debate is a diversion and the obscene wages are funded by a combination of the media, hedge funds, billionaires and now nation states.
The wages of public sector workers who help to keep us alive and ticking over are about Government choices and how they priorities as much as anything else. I know first hand what a nurse of many years experience gets paid and for the most part unless there is a move into managerial roles, its £30k a year or less, you can earn more literally in some call centre or supermarket jobs and Im not being disparaging to those workers, but they don’t help to keep us well.
We are not as a country overflowing with nurses or teachers, with supply outstripping demand, you only have to visit a hospital or look at the stats on new entrants into teaching training too see the supply demand argument is completely flawed.

You're right to point out out that as a result of stagnant pay the government is having difficulty recruiting people into nursing and teaching (reflecting my point about supply and demand). What comes next? Either the government imports lots from overseas (easier for nurses presumably given teaching requires good english) or pay has to increase relative to other occupations or the service gets worse.

What footballers get paid is irrelevant to those decisions (it's not an attainable alternative like working in a call centre or a supermarket or perhaps training as an accountant). But clearly even if government decided health or education was the highest priority and massively ramped up spending so that pay was seen as extremely attractive, it would still be an order of magnitude lower than the highest pay in entertainment industries because those are more competitive environments.

I'm working on a project at work concerning fairness and it's very problematic because no one can agree on what represents fairness or what the public will perceive as fair (don't worry: I'm just doing the numbers, so I won't get to define it).

[charlatan]

The UK pays medical staff less than other countries where, I notice, footballers are also rich.

I mean I'm as confused as anybody.

NHS has massive monopsony power?

[Monty]

The UK pays medical staff less than other countries where, I notice, footballers are also rich.

I mean I'm as confused as anybody.

NHS has massive monopsony power?

Cannot think of a single other major economy whose main sport is football where this is the case.

Apart from, you know, all of them.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Football is a global industry where there aren't many barriers in terms of selling the product and employees moving freely from country to country. Whatever people on here assign as a value to footballers or surgeons, all the time the Premier League is being sold abroad for billions then the players are going to earn astronomical amounts. The only alternative would be for the Premier League to disband, stop selling rights abroad and for us to go back to a parochial lower league standard of football. Entertainers have always earned huge amounts in comparison to more "worthy" careers. Jarvis Cocker, Bruce Springsteen and Damon Albarn will just have earned a few million quid each for a couple of hours of singing songs they wrote 30 years ago to tens of thousands of people.

Yup. I think the easiest comparison with football is cinema. Some actors get paid millions for films, others do very well, some okay, most are looking for their big break. It's a global entertainment industry, just like football. The big production companies can afford to pay for the best knowing it almost guarantees success. Neither football or cinema are 'normal' industries, they're the exception.

[ASHTONVILLA]

I hope we sign someone soon, so I don't have trawl through all the leftist word salad much longer and we can get back to discussing football.

[Drummond]

I think that virtually everyone thinks that medical professionals and firemen etc should be paid far more for what they do.

I also think the vast majority think that footballers should be paid less.

We know who the real heroes are.

Do you vote with your feet on footballers' pay or are you part of the problem?

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, but every football supporter, whether they watch on TV, or in person, or.who buy tat from the shop are part of the problem. So yes, I am.

I also vote to support the NHS and emergency services with more funding and support people with their demand for improved terms and conditions.

[Small Rodent]

I hope we sign someone soon, so I don't have trawl through all the leftist word salad much longer and we can get back to discussing football.

“Leftist”? Wanting nurses and teachers to be paid more? I thought it would be a universal concern.

[RamboandBruno]

I hope we sign someone soon, so I don't have trawl through all the leftist word salad much longer and we can get back to discussing football.

Leftist word salad, talking about NHS workers pay? JFC