Extra kilos lead to slimming of player wage-packets
|
|
Top-flight football teams take a very serious view of their players’ fitness curves. Bolton Wanderers are no exception in this respect.
The weights and body fat percentages of the squad members are checked regularly and the penalties are severe if the rich lifestyle of the Premiership has brought extra inches to a player’s waistline.
"You can’t put on more than a kilo or two in weight, and the percentage body fat figure cannot under any circumstances go above 12%. Body fat is also monitored so that it cannot rise to more than 10% over a player’s measurement given when he is match-fit", explains Bolton’s first-string goalkeeper Jussi Jääskeläinen, who is in very trim condition.
If these readings set the medics’ alarm-bells ringing, the player feels it in the form of a short, sharp shock to his bank-balance. The loss of two weeks’ wages is the result. In the Premiership this means a cost-item of around GBP 30,000 (EUR 45,000) on average.
By coincidence, a similar two-week maximum disciplinary fine was also handed out on Sunday to Bolton striker El-Hadji Diouf, on loan this season from Liverpool, for spitting at Portsmouth defender Arjan de Zeeuw during Saturday’s defeat.
Jääskeläinen points out that the penalties on the weight and body-fat front are not so severe if a player has been recovering from injury.
He also notes that he has never been close to receiving a fine, but that other players at the Reebok Stadium have had their wages docked for failing to keep in lean shape.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 27.11.2004
More on this subject:
 Play it differently, Sam: Jussi Jääskeläinen at Bolton
Helsingin Sanomat
|
|
