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Easy come & easy go. For example Eden Hazard aged 22, is reputed to be paid £185,000 per week as one of the best paid Premiership footballers. The average Premier Footballer’s salary of £30,000 a week is obscene, when compared to the average UK Salary in the UK of £26,500 per year. However it is often too easy to spend up to your income. With these level of weekly income, it was initially very surprising to hear that:

• 60% of Premier Footballers reputedly are bankrupt within 5 years. However most Premier Footballers finish in the Premiership by their mid 30’s and sometimes shorter than that, if injury or performance stops their career earlier, so a short but spectacular careers.

This is not just a UK issue. In the USA

• 78 % of NFL players went bankrupt or suffered “financial stress” within two years of retirement.
• 60% of NBA stars lost all their money within five years.

Regrettably it is not just spectacularly paid Footballers, who have problems with Savings and Financial Management after their earning days are finished. If we consider an average salary of £26,500 and a 40 year earning period, this equals over £1 million. Regrettably 15 million Britons are not saving at present and 8 million have no savings. Also average savings are just over £1,600. So whilst the financial profligacy of footballers is to be regretted, we should also consider our own financial management.