You Can Stop Laughing At Derby Now

There are plenty of footballers collecting paychecks the world over who deserve their wages in no way, shape or form. There are even more footballers who feel the need to parlay one good year or one run of form into a new contract. But you never really hear about players giving money back or setting standards for their own pay – and you certainly never hear about it from entire teams.

Derby’s changing that, admitting they weren’t very good the last couple years (slight understatement) and so they will not accept their season-end bonuses unless they finish in the top six.

That guy who sleeps in refrigerators, more commonly known as Robbie Savage, had this to say:

“We have not deserved a bonus in the past two years and so have decided not to collect our bonuses this season unless we finish in the top six.

“You can call it a gesture of goodwill but we prefer to look on it as the right thing to do. These are tough times financially in football and we believe we should only be rewarded for having a good season.”

Most people know just how splendidly Derby’s journey to the Prem went back in 07/08 (by splendidly we mean historically poor), but those who don’t follow The Coke may not know that Derby County went from the Premiership to 18th in the Championship within one year. That’s not exactly a very good bounce back – in fact you might even say it’s pretty bad. Despite their abysmal showing in the Prem, they were still a Premiership team and that’s a deep, deep plummet, one which probably didn’t deserve the bonuses they’d received.

And perhaps that’s what’s most impressive about this: it’s not as though Derby County missed a Prem return by thismuch last year and finished a comfortable fourth, making sixth a near foregone conclusion. No, they finished a massive 20 points from the final playoff position – 12 spots in the table – and only 8 points from the dreaded double relegation to League One. There’s nothing safe or easily achievable about this bonus – they’ll need to improve beyond reasonable expectation to finish within that top six.

This isn’t a hollow gesture, it’s a genuine bid to take some accountability for their play and added motivation to mend their own shortcomings. Something you wish every team could do, which means I stand corrected: the most impressive part of all this isn’t their lofty goal, but rather than we can say without a chuckle or hint of sarcasm that every team should take a page out of Derby County’s book.

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Category: World Football