WE learn this week of another footballer earning a figure of £400,000-plus per week.

I don’t blame the player but it’s unfair to other clubs unable to pay sums like this.

Football is no longer a game of the people but a folly of the rich. If you can afford to buy the best players you win if you can’t, you lose, it’s as simple as that.

I used to watch some football as a child then it got stupid. North-East teams should be made up of North-East players – the same across the country. Football now is big business with the beautiful game being nothing more than a commodity to trade in.

Footballers have a God-given talent and as many say a short career, well, if they haven’t made enough and kept some for that rainy day do what others who lose their job – like the Teesside steel workers – look for another one.

John Cumberland, Rushyford