The changing face of football 1979

[Silver Sean]

Amazing quotes.
John Smith when we became the first team in UK to sign a shirt sponsorship deal in 1979.
People forget how desperate times were in football at that time. No leather AUDI dug out seats back then!

"We are talking about an industry that is desperately short of money and we are fighting for our existence" said John Smith at a press conference to announce the Hitachi deal, "In terms of commerce and industry we, at Liverpool, are broke but in football terms we are wealthy. "From a turnover of £2.4 million last year, Liverpool's profit at the end of the day was a meager £71.000...this is for one of the leading clubs in Europe.

"The overheads in our game are colossal and we have got to generate more remunerative activity off the field. The days are gone when a club like ours can control their destiny on the money coming through the turnstiles"...."I think other clubs will follow our lead. We are taking up the cudgels and I believe we will see the day when shirt advertising is allowed in televised games and in UEFA Competitions."

 

[Holle]

Amazing quotes.
John Smith when we became the first team in UK to sign a shirt sponsorship deal in 1979.
People forget how desperate times were in football at that time. No leather AUDI dug out seats back then!

"We are talking about an industry that is desperately short of money and we are fighting for our existence" said John Smith at a press conference to announce the Hitachi deal, "In terms of commerce and industry we, at Liverpool, are broke but in football terms we are wealthy. "From a turnover of £2.4 million last year, Liverpool's profit at the end of the day was a meager £71.000...this is for one of the leading clubs in Europe.

"The overheads in our game are colossal and we have got to generate more remunerative activity off the field. The days are gone when a club like ours can control their destiny on the money coming through the turnstiles"...."I think other clubs will follow our lead. We are taking up the cudgels and I believe we will see the day when shirt advertising is allowed in televised games and in UEFA Competitions."

They're trying hard enough though.

 

[peterhague]

The thing I've never quite understood is why it took so long for things to change in England. In 1984 Napoli paid £7m for Maradona when our record transfer was about £1.5m; in 1991 Milan signed Lentini for £13m when the English record was £3m.

Why was money so slow to dominate here? I'd be genuinely interested to know.

 

[Holle]

The thing I've never quite understood is why it took so long for things to change in England. In 1984 Napoli paid £7m for Maradona when our record transfer was about £1.5m; in 1991 Milan signed Lentini for £13m when the English record was £3m.

Why was money so slow to dominate here? I'd be genuinely interested to know.

I think it has to do with the European ban after Heysel.

No European football - no stars.

 

[peterhague]

Where were the European stars before Heysel?

Barca were paying Cruyff £1m a year in the 1970s!

 

[Pesam]

I'm sure that I read somewhere that Emlyn Hughes was the top earning player in the top division in 1979 (when he signed for Wolves) and he was on circa £400 per week! The national average back then was about £80; so basically the top paid professional footballer was "only" earning 5 times the national average!

To put that in perspective, it would mean that the top paid player today (someone like Yaya Toure) would be on £130,000 PER YEAR!.

Can anyone verify these facts?

 

[Holle]

Well, I don't think there's one particular reason to it.

The European ban was maybe a part of it.

 

[Silver Sean]

Football in Italy was awash with money, as was Germany in the 70s. Here it wasn't. There was a reason Keegan went to Hamburg, Souness to Samp etc. Heysel didn't help, but up until then we were in a totally different situation.
Spurs signing two Argentinians who had won the World Cup was incredible back then.

 

[Silver Sean]

The thing I've never quite understood is why it took so long for things to change in England. In 1984 Napoli paid £7m for Maradona when our record transfer was about £1.5m; in 1991 Milan signed Lentini for £13m when the English record was £3m.

Why was money so slow to dominate here? I'd be genuinely interested to know.

To think Barnes cost us £900,000 in 1987 is incredible.

 

[tombrown]

The thing I've never quite understood is why it took so long for things to change in England. In 1984 Napoli paid £7m for Maradona when our record transfer was about £1.5m; in 1991 Milan signed Lentini for £13m when the English record was £3m.

Why was money so slow to dominate here? I'd be genuinely interested to know.

And then Sky came along & changed it all