Ever wondered what an up and coming young footballers get from the sports brands that want them to wear their gear?
We certainly have, mainly any time we have to fork over the guts of €100 for a pair of football boots that are on sale, and pondered what life would be like if we played for a professional team and had all that stuff sent to us.
We know that the likes of Paul Pogba absolutely rake it in when it comes to sponsors and endorsements, but what about the players that nobody knows yet?
It turns out that sports brands offer young players endorsements in the hope that they will emerge as breakout stars and achieve things while wearing their boots, take Marcus Rashford as an example, that looked very, very good for Nike. Jordan Speith also earned Under Armour an incredible amount of money when he won The Masters, seemingly out of nowhere, in their gear.
So what's the deal? We now have a good idea thanks to French site Espoirs du Football [via FootyHeadlines.com], as a leaked contract from a young French player has emerged online. Have a glance over it, we'll explain it below.
This contract includes bonuses based on the player in question making the France U17 team, that would suggest that it is a standard contract for any young player at a pro club in the country.
There are no fixed sums of money involved, again, standard for a player of that age.
Football boots will be "donated" by the company, which means that the players will be sent boots to play with, presumably at their choice from the available range. So basically, football boots will just arrive for you to wear. Every young lad's dream.
For clothes, such as tracksuit bottoms and hoodies, there is a yearly allowance of up to €5000 worth of goods. These goods can be ordered, and must be collected from a local outlet. As you can see above this will go up for each level of the national team they reach, up to €8000 at U21s, where we're sure a new contract will need to be arranged as the player will be well known.
Imagine being told you can have up to €5000 of Adidas gear delivered for free each year... Judging by what seems popular with the youth of Dublin and surrounding areas, that would be a dream come true for many.
Finally, the contract contains stipulations based on performance in tournaments with the national setup between U19 and U21 level. As these tournaments are frequently scouted for talent, if you are a member of a winning team you will receive a bonus of €5000 for wearing the company's products while doing so. You'll bag another €5000 if you are the tournament top scorer, or player of the tournament, or both, meaning you could be taking home a €15,000 bonus if you absolutely smash it, which doesn't seem like a lot considering the standard of those compeitions.
Surely players playing in U19 and U21 would already be earning a decent wage, but again, this seems to be a very basic contract.
It's always interesting to get a look at the little perks of the dream job, but unfortunately for most we'll just have to ask Santa for new boots and hoodies.
