[Slick_Footwork]

I'm with Blue on this one.  Players have short careers in comparison to the rest of us but as stated earn a heck of alot more, but as Blue said that affords them a lifestyle that we can only dream of but still needs to be maintained.  Charlie Austin is a classic case of this, he was reportedly on 100k a week at Southampton, moved to you guys and is reportedly on 70k a week, so he did take a cut to get game time.  But there was only 2-3 clubs in the Championship that could afford to do that deal, those on parachute payments, so his marketability in the Championship is very limited because of his wages.  The average wage in the Championship is 29k/week and while I would expect Austin to be higher than that its reasonable to say the most he is likely to get form other teams in the Championship is 40-50k/week.  So if he was to do that he would be taking a 50% pay cut over what he was on a year ago.  I believe his contract runs out after next season, so he can either sit it out on the bench for you guys and earn 7m or move to another championship club and cut that by 3m or so, a lot of players will not take that hit unless they are forced to.

Of course if he can get a move to a PL club, its a completely different story where the average wage is over 10 times that of the Championship!!!  But I think the Championship is probably his level now anyway.

It depends on the player really regarding their lifestyle and costs of maintenance. You get some like Obafemi Martins who when he was at Newcastle and was on £80k per week and in debt. But others might be a bit more sensible with their cash. Realistically, Premier League Players should have millions in the bank, paid off all homes and cars, have a property portfolio and investments. If the average Championship wage is £29k (admittedly, this is higher than I thought) that's £1.5m per year. If a player with no expenses can't live comfortably on that, they have made some pretty bad decisions in life.

For me as a football lover, it's unthinkable to become a professional and be "happy" sitting on the bench just to become 'more' of a millionaire.

It's what we call in normal the regular world the work life balance.

But I think the reality is a lot of footballers for whatever reason (social media scrutiny or abuse perhaps) have lost their love of the game. They don't actually care about playing at all. And that's why it's not a trade off between playing and cash - it's simply about cash and nothing more. Blue mentioned Gareth Bale earlier and he's a prime example, as he's openly admitted preferring to play golf.

But I do still hold hope that some professional players hold the same love for the game that I do.