There’s a certain irony in the fact that when there was a maximum wage of £100 per week for players back in the sixties , teams were brimming with young emerging talent which these days has largely disappeared as players are rewarded as if they were CEOs of multi billion corporations or Hollywood superstars.
Look at Scotland alone.
Celtic won the European Cup with a team all born within a 20 mile radius of Glasgow.
Scotland produced the likes of Mackay, Baxter, Law, Bremner and Dalglish.
Unthinkable these days that they would produce players of such quality.
When did they produce their last great player?
Our own most talented youngsters now are courted and poached by Arsenal and Chelsea signing lucrative contracts before they have hardly kicked a ball.
Rather than sweeping the dressing rooms and cleaning e.g Eze’s boots and learning the game, they are propelled to a kind of unwarranted superstardom which in many cases is likely to end in tears.
Of course there are other reasons for the change e.g lack of street football, computer games and other attractions, but it seems to me as the rewards have got greater less genuine talent is emerging.