Premier League stars paid too much – Franny Lee
FORMER Manchester City star Francis Lee has called for a halt to soaring wages of today’s football icons in the wake the deal which will see the Premier League rake in £5.1bn from Sky and BT from 2016 to 2019.
The millionaire businessman who was City chairman from 1994 to 1998 was speaking at the University of Bolton in the town where he launched his career with local club Wanderers in 1959.
Lee, 70, was famous for standing up for himself as a player when he felt he was being under paid or unfairly treated, but he told an audience of business leaders and academics he believed footballers were now adequately paid.
He left Wanderers at the age of 23 to join City because he believed he was being underpaid and effectively negotiated his own transfer from Manchester City to Derby County later in his career.
“When football is on TV there is always going to be a big premium for the companies to pay,” he said.
“But I think the players are adequately paid for what they do now. If they were to get more, they would be overpaid in my view.
“You’ve got to have someone with some power and clout at the Premier League to say ‘we’ve got to put a levy on this’.
“It is more important for the money to be spent on building better facilities, helping the lads to become better sportsmen and better people.
“I think £300,000 a week is way too much.” And he quipped “If I had been getting that, I would never have been able to stay sober.”
Interviewed by broadcaster Gordon Burns, Lee, who still lives in Bolton’s satellite town Westhoughton, said he had been lucky “things have run for me”.
“The most important thing is that I’ve always had a great deal of pleasure in working or playing sport,” he said.
“I just wanted to be good at whatever I did.”
Lee scored 112 goals for City in seven years and was the club’s top scorer for five of those seasons. He won the League title with both City and Derby.
He also holds the English record for the greatest number of penalties scored in a season, a feat which earned him the nickname Lee Won Pen, and occasionally led to accusations of diving.
One such accusation, from Leeds United’s Norman Hunter led to an on-pitch fight, which was later dubbed football’s most spectacular sending off.
Alongside his football career, Lee, who played 27 times for England including at the 1970 Mexico World Cup, turned a paper recycling business into a successful toilet roll manufacturer F H Lee, employing a workforce of 300 and became a millionaire.
He was also a race horse owner and trainer.
