how long would the equivalent of your annual salary keep a professional footballer on the field?

From when the ref blows the whistle to start the match to the moment the first goalkeeper touches the ball. Look at it this way - twenty-two players on the field and ninety minutes so that's about four minutes of ball control per player - even including throw ins, goal kicks, free kicks etc. So two hundred thousand a week (match) is for four minutes work. So that's fifty thousand quid a minute of time your average player has the ball.

Obviously a professional player works six days a week - training or playing and is at the very peak of fitness and very talented so the four minutes are just the accumulation of a lifetime's experience and skill honed by endless training.

And the TV money is measured in billions per season so why should a player - part of the TV programme - not get a celebrity pay scale?

Professional footballers are highly skilled people doing specific jobs. Like doctors etc. I'm not against migrants or immigration per se, just the sheer volumes of migrants from Eastern Europe that we are being expected to absorb. We cannot provide employment for them all without our own workers suffering, either through finding it hard to find a job or through wage cuts. When the job market gets flooded, unskilled and low waged workers are the first to suffer. Small scale, skilled migration is good for the country and the economy. Flooding the job market is only good for those who are at the top, who get to employ cheap labour. Its bad news for those at the bottom.

cos they're only kicking a ball? and losing !