Southampton: Saints man Yoshida makes incredible charity commitment

Southampton defender Maya Yoshida has pledged to give 1% of his salary to official club charity, the Saints Foundation.

The 30-year-old has made the move as he goes into his seventh year as a Saints player and will see him support the work of the charity around the city of Southampton.

Money is often a talking point in conversations about the Premier League, with huge sums seen through transfer fees and wages.

However, the amounts that players earn is not their fault.

Extortionate bids for the top-flight TV rights deals have driven up prices and led to a hike in earnings. Players are constantly in the public eye too and deserve a decent living because of that; even if some of the figures quoted nowadays cannot be justified.

Yoshida is making a similar commitment to the players who have joined Juan Mata’s Common Goal organisation.

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The likes of Borussia Dortmund’s Mats Hummels, Juventus defender Georgio Chiellini, RB Leipzig manager Julian Nagelsmann and many high-profile players from the women’s game pledged to give at least 1% of their salaries towards the movement that supports football charities throughout the world.

As a sport that is played and watched all over the world, it is good that some effort is being made to make sure that everyone has access to what they need to play the sport and see their heroes in action.

Many people are still priced out of going to watch Premier League football too. Despite the vast sums of money in the English top-flight, ticket prices remain a lot higher than other leagues in Europe.

Another area that attracts scrutiny is the amount of money that is paid to agents for their role in the transfer of their players.

Saints reportedly shelled out £6,151,107 to agents in the year ending January 2019, but that was nowhere near the £43,795,863 that Liverpool paid.