c4countdown

£27,000 for getting BEAT in the first round at Wimbledon, £6 million a year for managing England, the rewards of failure!

Stupid thread. Getting beaten in the first round at Wimbledon and acceding to England manager both require a lot of previous success.

I think Steven just likes getting outraged by things. He's like the Daily Mail online without all the pictures of ladies with their tits out. And fewer readers.

Conor wrote:Stupid thread. Getting beaten in the first round at Wimbledon and acceding to England manager both require a lot of previous success.

Yes, although the idea that football managers have particular ability in their job doesn't quite have the same body of evidence behind it. Probably even less so with national managers given that it's a role with very limited scope.

Re:Roy Hodgson, I suppose winning the "Mickey Mouse" Swedish league must have counted as "previous success" in the eyes of the F.A.

If it's so easy, you do it. Then you may mock.

Rate the Swedish league, do you Callum?

Steven M. McCann wrote:Rate the Swedish league, do you Callum?

The quality of the league in a sense is irrelevant since all the teams are of a similar quality. The EPL is probably an easier league to win if you happen to be managing one of the top teams with an endless bank account. People praise Guardiola but I could probably have won both leagues he's won with the players at his disposal. I don't rate Hodgson, I think he's the wrong man for the England job but he's accomplished stuff in his career that you could only dream of.

When the FA finally do get rid of Hodgson, you should get in touch with them Mark, anyone on a par with Pep Guardioli, has got to be in with a shout!

Steven M. McCann wrote:£27,000 for getting BEAT in the first round at Wimbledon

Being this obnoxious takes quite a lot of skill! Getting a direct acceptance into Wimbledon in the first place requires a world ranking in the top 100 (think about how much the 100th best footballer in England, let alone the world, is earning), which requires wins on the Challenger Tour (ITF 50/75/100s for women) as well as decent showings in ATP/WTA tournaments. Given the travel/racket stringing/coaching/other costs incurred in order to compete at Challenger level at the paltry prize fund on offer, you need to be in about the world's top 150 to be able to live far above the poverty line without heavy financial backing from outside. Then, 16 men and 12 women get in through qualifiers, which requires a player to win 3 matches (not to mention having a good enough ranking in the first place to get into qualifiers, which requires doing well at Challengers and winning Futures events, where the prize fund has remained the same in nominal terms for 2 decades despite inflation). Thus whichever way a player gets into Wimbledon, they've more than earnt their £27K, a payday that would be over half their yearly earnings in some cases, meaning that they can afford to play on the tour, ensuring that there is enough strength in depth at tournaments to maintain interest and justify the high prize money at the top end.

Best stick to the Daily Mail comments section in future, Steven! They seem to enjoy ill-informed rants on there more than we do.

Why are you comparing Tennis to Football? the 100th best footballer in England would probably be a household name, playing the national sport for a top 8 club and rewarded as such, whilst the 100th best tennis player would most likely be a relative unknown (except to tennis fanatics) in a comparatively elitist sport, dominated by a handful of big names!
One of our British "stars" had just been soundly thrashed with very little resistance, when the reporter mentioned "the £27K just for turning up should ease the pain a little!"
Top tennis coach Julian Hoferlin reckons British players are "too spoilt", is he talking rubbish too?

Steven M. McCann wrote:Why are you comparing Tennis to Football? the 100th best footballer in England would probably be a household name, playing the national sport for a top 8 club and rewarded as such, whilst the 100th best tennis player would most likely be a relative unknown (except to tennis fanatics) in a comparatively elitist sport, dominated by a handful of big names!
One of our British "stars" had just been soundly thrashed with very little resistance, when the reporter mentioned "the £27K just for turning up should ease the pain a little!"
Top tennis coach Julian Hoferlin reckons British players are "too spoilt", is he talking rubbish too?

Didn't I mention that most tennis players are struggling to make ends meet and that the £27K is hard-earned beforehand by attaining a high-enough ranking? The rankings criterion for British wildcards, although easier than getting a direct acceptance, an still not easy and one which is in part there because the fans want to see British players, even if they lose relatively easily. By extension, you are calling American, Australian and French wildcards who lose in round 1 of their Grand Slam spoilt too, and since your sole intention seems to be to denigrate British sportspeople, I thought that it would be worth pointing that out. Sharapova (who beat Samantha Murray easily, the game I presume you're referring to) would have beaten many of the top 100 just as or almost as easily the way she played that day. Naomi Broady won her first round match after getting a wildcard and Tara Moore almost beat a former world number 2, why don't you focus on them? The accusation that British players are spoilt is a common one and probably has some merit and usually refers to how top British juniors are treated between ages 10-17 rather than adults (which I addressed earlier), but it is also a strange one. Footballers in academies (across the big European leagues, so not just England before you make that argument) have all their needs attended to (they have phyios, dieticians etc) as well as living in comfortable accommodation and the consensus rightfully is that this investment helps rather than makes them "spoilt". Also, by implying that I was making a direct comparison between football and tennis, you are wilfully misrepresenting my argument. The point I was trying to make (and by your wilful ignorance, one you will most likely again choose to ignore) is that reaching the top 100 is something that takes years of practice to attain and is not as easy as I'm sure you'd wish to make out. Anyway, by awarding higher prize money to lower-ranked players (which is something that should be done at all tournaments, not just Grand Slams) and thereby reducing financial barriers to entry, tennis tournaments would be more competitive, meaning that the sport would be less dominated by a handful of big names.
Hoferlin is not talking rubbish, but unfortunately, you are.

Actually the player the reporter was referring to was male not female, well, enjoy Andy when you can because there's not much on the horizon.

Such negativity must be tiring.

Congratulations to "hungry" Aussie wildcard Nick Kyrgios on reaching the quarter-finals after his terrific win over world No.1 Rafael Nadal, thus guaranteeing himself at least £226,000!

Good luck finding a bureau de change willing to do a switcheroo into fackin Ozzie dollars!

Steven M. McCann wrote:Congratulations to "hungry" Aussie wildcard Nick Kyrgios on reaching the quarter-finals after his terrific win over world No.1 Rafael Nadal, thus guaranteeing himself at least £226,000!

Yes, because Tennis Australia is bankrupt and Aussie players are woefully underfunded. Oh wait ...

Also, the thing about getting £27,000 for losing in the first round would be better stated as £27,000 for making it to Wimbledon. The losing finalist will get loads, but it's not the act of losing that has earnt* them the money.

*This is a word. Fuck off.

Steven M. McCann wrote:Congratulations to "hungry" Aussie wildcard Nick Kyrgios on reaching the quarter-finals after his terrific win over world No.1 Rafael Nadal, thus guaranteeing himself at least £226,000!

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Are you trying to prove that British players are uniquely spoilt by getting wildcards into tournaments and that Aussie WCs are better?

Nick Kyrgios isn't you're average wildcard. He's the world's highest-ranked teenager and has been widely feted as a future top ten player. Having once been a tennis powerhouse, Australia have been struggling for years to produce top players. Tomic has shown promise, but his attitude has been a problem. Now it looks like they've finally found one.

As Oliver said, the costs of being a top tennis player are huge. There's the hotels, the weekly air travel, the coach's salary, the coach's hotel and flights, the rackets and tennis kit, and so on. Tournaments don't pay the players' expenses. You can make valid arguments about the LTA overfunding British tennis players, but that's no reason to force half the field to make a financial loss.

Bump. Wildcard James Ward not doing too badly for a spoilt Brit, eh.

Getting BEAT in the first round of Wimbledon is not necessarily a bad thing - it might have been the longest available word.

Heather Styles wrote:Getting BEAT in the first round of Wimbledon is not necessarily a bad thing - it might have been the longest available word.

lol!