Manchester United could help over 13,000 vulnerable locals if spending was cut by 5%, study shows

We’ve all wondered what footballers do with their money, with the average Premier League player earning approximately £191,085 a month – almost 120 times more than the average EU wage. 

Although we will never know their actual spending habits, new research shows that if each of the top six Premier League football clubs cut their spending by just 5%, they could transform the lives of nearly 59,000 people across the UK. 

The research comes as part of a Club Vs Community study, which found that cutting the top expenses of Manchester United could take 713 homeless Mancs off the streets each year. 

With 320,000 homeless people now reported across the UK, and 5,564 of those making a home on the streets of Manchester, it’s no shock to say that homelessness is a huge problem in the UK. And seeing these figures, it makes you wonder why this hasn’t been done before.

To put this into context: if Manchester United were to dedicate 5% of their spending to these social concerns, they would still be left with £863,293,047, and 80p. The remaining £45,436,476 could be used to successfully rehabilitate those sleeping on the streets, as well as provide 59 vulnerable homes with social care professionals, and recruit 37 nurses to help with the depleting number of NHS staff.

You may be wondering “why aren’t these things being funded already?”. It currently costs £1,386 to successfully get a homeless person off the streets, and £16,728 per social worker to assist vulnerable members of society. 

Furthermore, there are now 43,000 nurse vacancies across the country, as more and more valuable community services have their funding cut. It poses the common question as to whether these football clubs could be putting their wages to a better use. 

So far, Manchester United has raised more than £3.9 million over the last year to help vulnerable children through their partnership with UNICEF, a partnership which is actually the longest running relationship between and football club and global charity. 

While this is fantastic, if they were to cut their player wages by just 5%, they could rehabilitate 10,292 homeless people, or hire 853 social workers. 

If Manchester City were to do the same with their players, they could help another 7,925 homeless people get off the streets, and hire another 416 nurses. 

Although it is not the football players’ direct responsibility to look after these people and solve these problems, for such a minor cut of their wage to help so many people, it surely seems like a no-brainer?