Are today’s young sports stars overpaid? It’s an opinion you’ll often hear repeated, especially in the world of football. The figures are astonishing. When the Welsh player Gareth Bale joined Real Madrid in 2013, his reported salary was around £250,000 a week or, if you prefer, £13 million a year. So every week he earns as much as the average Real supporter makes in ten years. This may be an extreme example, but there are a lot more footballers around the world earning almost as much.
It’s a situation that makes some people very angry, but those who are infuriated by it often forget what players have to do to get to the top, and the risks involved. A new book by Wayne Barton tells the story of some of those who fell on the way up. These are young men who achieved the dream of playing for the famous club Manchester United, but only had short careers, often because of injuries. Take young Tony Gill, for example, who was on his way to becoming a regular first team player when he hurt his leg and was never able to recover, or the young forward Deiniol Graham, who broke his arm and never played professionally again.
The list of these tragedies goes on, but the story that stands out is that of Giuliano Maiorana. At the age of 19, he was playing for an amateur team in Cambridgeshire, England when he was noticed by one of Manchester United’s many scouts, who was searching the lower levels of football for promising young players. At first Giuliano thought the offer of a trial for the world-famous Manchester club was a joke. It wasn’t – only months later, he played his first match at United’s home ground, Old Trafford. He still remembers the mixture of excitement and terror he felt.
Unfortunately, he didn’t get on well with the manager, and was soon playing in the reserve team. It was in a reserve match two years later that his knee was badly damaged. Soon, at the age of 24, his career was finished. For seven years after that, he couldn’t even watch football. He now works for his family’s business back in Cambridge, moving furniture, and says that he now wishes he hadn’t been so good at football when he was young.
Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson (left) and captain Bryan Robson (right) welcome new signing Giuliano Maiorana at the Cliff training ground in Manchester, 8th December 1988.