NICE WORK

In a sport which pays its top stars upwards of £5m a year, with agents slicing £1m off the choicest deals and with managers' pay finally climbing close to the riches of the players, it is not greatly surprising that football's directors are rewarded rather well for the no-doubt admirable work that they do.

A survey of football's 20 highest earning directors, according to the most recently published annual accounts, shows that six were paid over £500,000 last year in salary, bonus, pensions and other benefits, and four earned over £900,000. Peter Kenyon, Chelsea's chief executive, still tops the list, but his £2.684m pay package includes the £2.4m Chelsea paid him in compensation for leaving his previous job at Manchester United. David Gill, who replaced Kenyon in the Old Trafford top job, enjoyed the most generous pay package last year, £1.009m for 11 months' work.

A comparison with non-football companies with a similar turnover, compiled by the Chartered Management Institute and Remuneration Economics, confirms that football pays its directors extremely well.

Outside the game's gilded circle, Gill would, on average, have to be running a company with a turnover in excess of £1.25bn to be in line for a £1m pay package. United's turnover last year - which was, as ever, the highest of any football club - amounted to barely an eighth of that figure at £159m.

Freddy Shepherd and Douglas Hall, the habitually high-earning directors of Newcastle United, were actually paid less last year than in 2004, with not a penny by way of the bonuses to which they had previously become accustomed. Still, to earn the £552,954 and £495,951 they were paid, respectively, in 2005, they would normally be running a company with a turnover of £600m, rather than the £90.2m Newcastle made from television, ticket sales, merchandising and catering to the hearty and loyal appetites of the Toon Army.

Not that the general corporate world is particularly marked by modesty in its awards to chief executives, of course - trades unions have for years campaigned against the level of rises given to directors, which were about 12% last year compared with ordinary workers' rises averaging only 3.8%, to £22,901.

Only four years ago, no football director was paid more than £660,000, an amount which seemed huge at the time. The highest earner was Richard Scudamore, the chief executive of the Premier League, and just below him were Peter Ridsdale, then the Leeds chairman, on £645,000 including a large bonus, and Bryan Richardson, the chairman of Coventry City, who was paid £633,193.

Many key figures in the game justify these salaries by talking about the pressures and profile of the job - although it might look to most people like a rather enjoyable way to spend the working day.

Phil Townsend, Manchester United's spokesman, told me that Gill's pay package was justified because of football's unique profile.

"We are the world's biggest sports business and one of its most recognised brands," he said. "The factors that are taken into account in determining David's salary stretch beyond a back-of-the-envelope calculation based on turnover."

However, Malcolm Clarke, the unpaid chairman of the Football Supporters' Federation, is not convinced that this is at all merited.

"These figures are mind-blowing to average football fans, many of whom do far more challenging and difficult jobs than running football clubs. The clubs have armies of loyal supporters and hefty TV deals done for them by the Premier League. It's clearly nice work if you can get it."

Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, remains a fabulous anomaly as a trade union leader who was paid £723,311 last year. That is about seven times more than Tony Woodley, the general secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union, the country's largest, with 835,000 members and an income of £63m. Taylor explains his salary unapologetically: "My members approve it democratically."

There lies the heart of the game's culture of excess. Scudamore has always been there or thereabouts at the top of the pay table, but his £781,000 last year, including a £200,000 bonus for negotiating the TV deals which bring billions into football, amounted to barely more than the loose change Wayne Rooney is reported to have fluttered away on the horses. Obscenely well paid they may look to the rest of us, but the suits running football are mere paupers compared with the players whose pay cheques they sign.