EXIT BRITISH FOOTBALL STARS

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 302, 16 September 1933, Page 18

EXIT BRITISH FOOTBALL STARS

Better Piay on the Continent

The greatest exodus in the history of football has started. At least 50 professional footballers —all well-known players—are leaving to take up positions with clubs on the Continent. They are going abroad (writes a “Sunday Chronicle” correspondent) because they maintain they cannot get a living wage from British clubs. Pollard, of West Ham, for instance, says the terms he was offered for the coming season were wholly insufficient. He has accepted an offer from France. The players know that in accepting foreign offers they are signing their "death warrants”so far as playing again in Britain is concerned. And they don’t particularly want tb go. “But what can we do?” one of them asked. “British clubs cannot or will not pay us a living wage. They want us on the Continent. We have practic-.

ally been forced to accept.” Football is booming all over the Continent. And now Turkey wants a British professional. Alex Jackson, who has had an inquiry from Stamboul, said in an interview that he has had inquiries from at least 20 clubs in all parts of the Continent asking him to put them in touch with reliable players. “Many of the British directors say that the ‘gates’ they get do not enable them to offer their players any more than the minimum of £4 a week,” he added. “The players blame the directors and the authorities of the game. That is the Impasse the game has reached. “In the meantime ‘gates’ generally are going down further and further, and more and more players are going ■. abroad.”