Should footballers get paid based on how they perform, or do you believe other factors beyond individual performance should play into this? No matter what side of the fence you’re on, there’s no denying this is a widely debated topic in the football world. 

The undisputed fact is that footballers get paid very well and in reality, that is regardless of whether they play or not, whether they play well or whether the team does well.

So, what do you think? Let’s take a deeper dive and look at some of the key arguments for and against footballers being paid based purely on how they perform.

Arguments for:

• Incentivises better performance - if a system was put in place where players were paid based on their performance, this is no doubt going to motivate them to play to the best of their ability - which would mean overall the team is likely to be more successful too.
• Fairer compensation - players would be fairly compensated for the value they’re adding to the team, over other factors such as who they are and their fame.
• Cost-effective for clubs - this approach would allow clubs to better manage wages, as they’ll only be forking out bigger salaries if their players are stepping up and delivering.
  
  

Arguments against:

• Complex to implement - measuring performance within teams and across football league’s would be subjective, therefore it would be a difficult task to ensure that players were paid fairly.
• Negative impact on team dynamics - performance-based pay is essentially setting the tone that each player is out for themselves, only focusing on their individual performance as opposed to working together as a team.
• Brand value and popularity - the fame and popularity of players is an extremely important part of what attracts and secures sponsors - a big money maker for clubs. You would lose this within a system only focusing on performance.
• Pressure and stress - if players know they need to bring their A-game every day in order to see the salary they’ve become accustomed to, that adds a lot of pressure - which ultimately could lead to burn out further down the line.