This Day in History: 2022-12-16

Nr. 367

MAXIMUM WAGE ABOLISHED (1961)

At the start of the 1960s the Football League decreed that the maximum wage a club could pay a player was £20 a week during the season and £17 a week during the summer. In 1961 chairman of the Professional Footballers’ Association Jimmy Hill decided to challenge this rule. «The maximum wage had always riled me,» said Hill. «There were no other careers, sporting or otherwise, in which you had something like that … We were deadly serious about striking if we didn’t get our way.» The Football League eventually relented and abolished the maximum wage, and Fulham striker Johnny Haynes became the first footballer to earn £100 a week.

PFA secretary Cliff Lloyd with George Eastham outside the High Court after the landmark ruling in the player’s favour was announced.