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Bravo, Man United Club wisely opens purse to re-sign Keane
Posted: Thursday December 09, 1999 03:49 PM
Manchester United caved in, broke its rigid pay structure and coughed up the dosh to keep Roy Keane as its inspirational on-field leader. They'd have been foolish not to. There's no one around quite like him. He's a monumental driving force in midfield for United with his endless stamina, boundless aggression, considerable skill and undeniable leadership qualities. Edgar Davids, Didier Deschamps and the like are mere pretenders to Keane's throne right now. The Irishman's the king of their particular midfield role and as close as they come to irreplaceable. United, newly crowned -- albeit unofficially -- world club champions to go with its European title and English double, have clearly realized that and rewarded its skipper with a new four-year, 50,000 pound-a-week contract. In U.S. dollars, that's about 75,000 each week, and that equates to $3.9 million a year. For a player so pivotal to United's continued success, it's small fry. Fair-to-middling baseball players receive that much in the United States on an alarmingly regular basis. Perspective and wages don't belong in the same sentence where the major leagues are concerned. Basketball and American football can be held guilty as charged at times, too, paying exorbitant amounts for ordinary talent. So United, the world's richest and presently most successful club, is to be applauded on one level for trying to maintain a pay structure... for trying to keep some semblance of order in a soccer-crazy world, where salaries continue to rise and could one day rival sporting pay in the U.S. But they should be applauded more for breaking the structure when absolutely necessary. Keane would have gone elsewhere otherwise, like to United's biggest European rivals Juventus or Barcelona, who pay whatever the going rate is for cash-hungry players.
And with Keane's contract up at the end of the season, United would have received nothing for him under the Bosman ruling. The Manchester club can't believe this has opened a can of worms for them. The title "world's richest club" isn't theirs because of financial naivete. True, when David Beckham and Ryan Giggs come up for renewal, they too will want as much if not more than Keane. No question. But they are worth it too, no doubt. Everyone in the United team appreciates his relative worth. There are others who won't dare to push the United chairman, board, manager and shareholders to the financial limit, who'll take their already sizeable salaries and ridiculously comfortable lifestyles and be quite content. Signing Keane, Beckham and Giggs to the biggest deals in English -- and perhaps European -- football, won't break the bank for the Old Trafford giants. Losing them might. Phil Jones is a co-host of "World Sport," the international sports show that airs live on CNN/Sports Illustrated and CNN International.
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