10 Reasons John Terry is Worth £135,000 a Week

John Terry was doing OK on £80,000 a week, certainly enough to be a solid competitor in those obscenely expensive drinking games we’ve been hearing about. But the Chelsea skipper’s new deal puts him on a whole ‘nother level. Prepare to be jealous: £135,000 a week – every week – until 2012. A few amateurish prods at my calculator make that £7million (plus £20k in spare change) as an annual salary, or a whopping £35million (plus £100k extra he could lose down the back of the sofa) over five years. In other words, he’s rich, bee-atch. JT is now the highest paid player in the Premiership ever, and the highest paid defender in the history of planet earth.

But to paraphrase Jennifer Aniston, is he worth it?

In realistic terms… no. Because no one is really worth £135,000 per week, especially not when it takes normal folk years to earn the same amount. It’s even been argued (though not 100% successfully) that as basically a big “head it and kick it away” centre half sitting behind the human shield that is Claude Makelele, John Terry may be a little overrated. Whatever. In the hyper-insane over-inflated world of football (and that goes double for Premiership football, treble for Chelsea) then the answer has to be yes. And here are several reasons why:

1. Lucas Neill is reportedly earning £60,000 a week at West Ham, so relatively speaking £135,000 a week for John Terry is an absolute bargain.
2. Michael Ballack and Andriy Shevchenko are both on £130,000 a week. John Terry has to be worth £5k a week more than either of those two, based on what they contribute to Chelsea.
3. The England captain is only 26. Based on the careers of other central defenders, his best five years are ahead of him.
4. Given the problems even the richest clubs have finding suitable centre backs, Chelsea would be insane not to pay whatever it took to keep John Terry at Stamford Bridge.
5. Despite his recent mega-wealth, the presence of John Terry prevents Chelsea looking like a traveling band of foreign millionaire playboys. I’m aware that that’s a Sci-Fi Channel worthy paradox. But in the era of expensive, overpaid foreigners (that, in all fairness, Chelsea helped usher in) having a London born and bred captain and talisman who looks like he could win a pub brawl is literally priceless.
6. Especially when you’re Roman Abramovich, and the word priceless has no meaning.
7. One club men should be rewarded.
8. How do we know someone hasn’t broken down what John Terry actually contributes on the field and decided to pay him £1,000 per tackle, header or clearance, plus £10,000 for every time he shouts loudly and points at someone?
9. Did you see Chelsea without him last season?
10. John Terry singlehandedly disproves the rule that you should never trust a man with two first names.

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Category: English Premier League