THE football season has started and players are turning out for their clubs in the bid for goals and glory. Local lads in the Saturday and Sunday leagues will be no less committed than Rooney or van Persie but will not, of course, be earning quite so much.

Some Premiership footballers will be paid £1 million a month. That's right, a lottery win every four weeks.

Even the pundits are making a fortune. Gary Lineker is said to be paid £2 million a year by the BBC.

Now I like Gary Lineker. I think he has made a brilliant transition from football hero to presenter and comedian – remember They Think It's All Over? Plus those crisp adverts? But £2 million?

That's £38,461 a week.

A lot more than the national average wage for a bloke of £30,000 a year.

Even Alan Hansen, that dour Scot of lugubrious delivery, is said to be on £1.4 million a year.

Good grief, my chum Jamie, a Sunday league player, talks more sense in the pub summing up a game. And he makes you laugh into the bargain.

The vast amount of money that flows through football is a nonsense. We need a more sensible pay structure and a limit to what clubs can spend on transfers and wages.

Market forces drive the pay deals in football.

Top clubs make vast amounts from global television and marketing rights. Football is a short career, they say, so players are entitled to make as much as they can for their future.

And if top players command fairytale wages you can't blame them. Let's be fair: if we had the chance, we'd take it, too. But surely, there has to be a limit?

We complain at the money corporate bankers make – but it's nowhere near what Balotelli takes home. One week's pay for a top Premiership player is more than the annual salary of a surgeon. Tell me the justification in that.

Players need a good wage but should they have the god-given right to be millionaires? Maybe at the end of their careers, but not every month. Pay them good wages, by all means, but within reason, with a decent pension paid at 40, and the training – technical college or university – to move on with their life when their playing days are over.

When Bill Shankly managed Town, he ensured a young Denis Law would have an alternative career: he enrolled him at the Tech to learn painting and decorating. The same principles should apply.

And while we're at it, we should also retire Hansen and give my mate Jamie the job. He'd do it better for half the money.

Is £700,000 all right with you, Jimbo?