Aston Villa Football Club

• Nickname:The Villains
• Founded:1874
• Manager:Paul Lambert

• Ground:Villa Park
• Capacity:42584

Villa boss defends wages

03 Nov 2007 - 12:24:04

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Aston Villa boss Martin O'Neill claims he has no problem with top stars earning massive salaries, but feels too many "average players" are overpaid.

O'Neill has played down comments from Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe that modern-day players are overpaid.

Speaking earlier in the week, Sutcliffe also claimed that Chelsea and England captain John Terry's reported £130,000 per week wages were "obscene".

However, O'Neill claims he has no problem with the sums paid to top players, but fears some lesser lights are commanding excessive wages due to the current state of English football.

"I do not begrudge the top-quality players getting well paid and I don't care what era you happen to be in," he said.

"It seems to be as if the Premier League is awash with money and the very good players seem to be availing themselves of that through their own efforts and the efforts of agents.

"I haven't got a major problem with that, what I do is the follow-on, that the very average players are getting well paid and that has been a bit of a problem, whereas in our day average players got average money - and I would know plenty about that."