Bastian Schweinsteiger set to join group of Premier League stars such as Mario Balotelli and Sami nasri in getting paid and not playing
Winston Bogarde stated the trend at Chelsea 16 years ago of raking in the cash but featuring very rarely for the club
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BASTIAN SCHWEINSTEIGER is the latest Premier League star to become football’s equivalent of a National Lottery winner.
The German looks set to spend the next two years earning money — millions of it — for old rope.
The Man Utd man hopes clubs are eyeing him up with his Old Trafford days over
And Schweinsteiger, 32, could be kicking his heels in Manchester over the winter with Joe Hart, Samir Nasri and even Yaya Toure — where they could maybe spend their weekends comparing bank balances.
This is now the world of the Unsellable Footballer.
Winston Bogarde was the top-flight’s trailblazer — he earned stacks of cash for not doing very much at Chelsea.
The story of this Dutch defender, who moved to Stamford Bridge on a free transfer in 2000, is legendary for one unique reason — he saw out his contract while barely featuring for the club.
Bogarde played just 11 times for Chelsea in a four-year deal worth £40,000-a-week.
During his final season, when then boss Claudio Ranieri had banished him to train with the youth team, Bogarde caught a daily KLM flight from Amsterdam to Heathrow for training at Cobham and then would fly home the same day.
Louis van Gaal was Bogarde’s mentor at Ajax and Barcelona — coincidentally, it was the Dutch manager who signed Schweinsteiger for Manchester United.
Now, Jose Mourinho has taken charge at Old Trafford, Schweinsteiger faces the prospect of earning £190,000-a-week until 2018 without getting anywhere near the United first-team.
At least the midfielder will now have even more time to go and watch his tennis-playing wife Ana Ivanovic.
United would happily take £2million for the German — but the problem for prospective clubs is the player’s monumental pay.
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Hart faces a similar situation at Manchester City as he is not wanted by Pep Guardiola.
But with no clubs following up their initial interest, Hart, 29, could spend the season as City’s No 3 keeper on £150,000-a-week.
Nasri, 29, who earns £120,000-a-week at City, has also been dumped out of Guardiola’s Champions League squad — for being deemed overweight.
Toure, 33, who banks £220,000-a-week, also faces an uncertain future at the Etihad.
Chelsea paid £26m for Juan Cuadrado 18 months ago but the Colombian, 28, has yet to score for the club and is now hoping for another loan spell at Juventus.
The Serie A giants will not pay for a permanent deal, though.
Mario Balotelli, 26, is another one you can add to the list.
He earns £110,000-a-week at Liverpool but has been training on his own after being told by Jurgen Klopp he has no future at Anfield and he has been turned down by Serie A minnows Sassuolo.
Again, it would only be a loan deal. No one wants to pay the cash for Balotelli and, to be frank, you cannot exactly blame them.
Lazar Markovic, 22, cost Liverpool £20m from Benfica in 2014.
He is not in Klopp’s plans either and is another player the Kop are now struggling to sell.
You cannot blame players for earning as much as possible and there is no reason why they should take a pay cut.
As Bogarde once said: “Why should I throw €15m away when it is already mine?”
But in many respects, clubs in this country do not help themselves and their reckless spending continues to bite them on the backside.
Tomas Rosicky’s injury record at Arsenal was so bad that he suffered a total of 41 problems in his decade at the club and made just 107 Premier League starts.
Last summer, Arsene Wenger took up the 12-month extension clause in the Czech’s deal, even though the midfielder wanted to leave.
He played just 19 minutes at a cost of £70,000-a-week.
Rosicky, 35, is apparently a very good guitarist and considering the time off he had during his time in north London, you can understand why.
Arsenal are also the club that wrote off £5.5m in their accounts to cover the wages of South Korean flop Park Chu-Young.
He spent three years at the club until 2014 and made one Premier League appearance — six minutes against Manchester United in a 2-1 home defeat.
Radamel Falcao, 30, was paid £290,00-a-week by Manchester United and £140,000-a-week at Chelsea during one-year loans from Monaco. The list goes on and nothing will change.
Football stars will keep getting richer and some will not even have to kick a ball — nice work if you can get it.
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