Money, and ambition, are the two factors that decide where a player moves.
A lot of players would rather move clubs for money than any other reason. Money, and ambition, are the two factors that decide where a player moves. Success brings money. If you play for Manchester United and you’re winning leagues and European Cups the bonuses are going to be really good. Even if you move to a bigger club for maybe 20 or 30 grand a week less, you will probably cover that with the extra money you can make by winning things and the extra opportunities that come with that.
I sacrificed my wages for a different reason, to keep my international career alive. When I left Liverpool, I was on a very good wage, £25,000 a week in fact. But to play and kep my place in the Irish set up I had to move so I did it. The best Blackburn could do was £19,000 and I had to take it. I didn’t want to, but I had to for my career.
In the end, it paid off. John Williams, then Blackburn chairman and one of the nicest men in football, repaid my flexibility when I really wanted out of Blackburn. He said to me that he remembered my ambition to play and my willingness to take a pay cut so he was willing to let me go to Sunderland if I wasn’t happy. I never forgot that and I really appreciated it.
But discussing wages in the dressing room is a taboo subject. The only time I ever got in trouble for it was in my Bolton days. Myself and Alan Stubbs always had the same deals and when it was time for a new deal we would both sign the same one. One day we were in the car park discussing our latest deal and someone overheard us and word got back to the manager Bruce Rioch.
He called us in the next morning and absolutely tore strips off us for discussing each others contracts, even though we both knew exactly what the other was on. It was a lesson learned.
At Liverpool when I signed our wages were structured. There was an age bracket system and there was a structure for each bracket so everyone knew that similar players were on similar money.
Even if the players don’t know what anyone else is on, the agent should. It is up to the agent to make sure that you get what you’re worth and ultimately, as long as the player is happy with the deal offered, it shouldn’t matter what anyone else is on. Nowadays they have the parity clauses so that top players get their deals increased to match the highest paid players but that was only creeping in during my time.
Location is the other consideration for players, and it did pop up a few times in my career. When I went to Blackburn there was also a chance to go to Tottenham but London never appealed to me. I wanted to stay in the north west.
I did have a few chances to go abroad. When I was at Liverpool I was sitting in a restaurant once and I got a call from Gary Newbon, the ITV football presenter. He said to me would I take a call from an Italian agent as Sampdoria wanted to talk to me. I said I was happy at Liverpool but I’d speak to the agent.
The agent called me, telling me how much Sampdoria wanted me and I said to give me a call back the next day. He did and we talked it over agian and he said they were going to make a move at the end of the season and we’d talk then to see how I felt. The very next day I played for Liverpool against Blackburn, broke my leg and I never heard from them again. Even if I hadn’t broken my leg, it would have been hard to leave Liverpool at that point though.
The other opportunity was when I went to Sunderland. There was chance to go to Sevilla in Spain but I really didn’t want to leave England so I turned them down.
Of course, my brother-in-law Steve McManaman tells me all about his life in Spain but it is a bit different when Real Madrid are in for you rather than the lower level clubs. He came back with loads of great friends, fluent in Spanish and a couple of European Cup winners medal so it didn’t work out too badly for him.
