YOU will have heard it a hundred times – maybe more – that professional footballers are overpaid, receiving ridiculous or even obscene amounts for, in the words of the non-believers, kicking a ball about.

But it’s a fair bet that you have never heard it from one of their own.

So when Manchester United midfielder Juan Mata stepped up to confirm on Spanish TV that the money they are paid was exactly that, then he probably did not win himself many friends inside the game.

Mata, a 28-year-old Spanish international, who joined United for £37m from Chelsea, picks up a tidy £150,000 a week (almost £8m a year), and admitted: “With respect to the rest of society, we earn a ridiculous amount. It’s unfathomable.”

Nobody is expecting Mata or any of his colleagues to volunteer for a pay cut – indeed according to England striker Daniel Sturridge: “I’m not here to have fun... Liverpool for me is work.”

Great work if you can get it, as the saying goes.

With Sky ploughing in billions, sponsors queuing up to throw money at the game and oligarchs and oil magnates looking for somewhere to spend their loose change, Mata and his mates can look forward to even bigger pay days. I just hope they appreciate it and try to remember the times when the world’s greatest were on twenty quid a week and went to work on the bus.

TALKING of money bags, The Wolfpack are coming. The latest move to take rugby league on to the world stage has raised a few eyebrows and the odd disbelieving chuckle or two.

Toronto Wolfpack will be playing in League One alongside Hemel Stags, Oxford, London Skolars and maybe even Barrow Raiders next season.

But, just how Canadian this new team will be is a mystery. They will be coached by ex-Leigh boss Paul Rowley, managed by Brian Noble and in their four or five-week stints in England will be based at Bradford.

Several players will be familiar faces to anybody who follows the game here (they will be English!) and the only connection with Canada will be for a couple of months a year when they play their “home” games.

Call me a cynic if you like, but we have tried and failed with full-time Super League in Paris and South Wales. What makes them think that the game can be a success at part-time, third tier level – even if, as reported, the Canadian promoters have the cash to fund it?

THIS time last year I was crowing over the success of one of the teams I reported on for years and came to think of as my “home” club.

Corby Town had won promotion to the Vanarama National League North, Barrow’s old stamping ground.

Well, as an update, I think it’s only fair to report that the Steelmen lasted just one year, finishing bottom and making a swift return to the Southern League. It’s a cruel world the place of the football supporter.

WEATHERWATCH: Early leaders in cricket’s County Championship are Warwickshire.

No surprise there.. except that they have managed to hit the top without winning a single game.

In fact, because of the weather, only two of the nine matches played in Division One have produced a definite result. In Division Two, it’s just as bad. Three out of 10 of the four-day fixtures have come up with a winner.

No wonder the Twenty20 craze is such a big hit. At least somebody wins.

PETER WILSON