By Duncan Shaw Jul 19, 2005, 12:38 GMT
Madrid - Spanish football this month offers a cautionary tale for today's overpaid football stars.
At the moment Luis Figo and Javier Saviola resemble the main characters from the late Saul Bellow's impressive novel "The Dangling Man".
Both forwards are killing time, hanging around with their bags packed, waiting for their next destination.
They cut lonely, sad figures right now - unwanted by their clubs and isolated from their former team-mates, none of whom have defended them in public.
But maybe we should not feel too sorry for Figo and Saviola. After all, to use the immortal phrase of Margaret Thatcher, they appear to have "priced themselves out of a job".
They are both very attractive players but Real Madrid and Barcelona are keen to move them along - because of their staggering salaries - and few clubs are prepared to match their wages.
That's why they resemble a couple of "Dangling Men" at the moment. But they really only have themselves to blame, since both are refusing to contemplate a reduction in their six million euros per year salary.
Or maybe the men to blame are their agents, who are insisting that any club that signs them or takes them on loan should continue to pay these inflated wages.
Saviola's agent is the aggressive Argentine Alfredo Cabrera, the man who negotiated his transfer from River Plate to Barcelona four years ago, when the "Little Rabbit" was just 19.
A year ago, when new Barca president Joan Laporta was demanding that all players accept a wage cut, Cabrera told Saviola to refuse. He was the only player to do so - and was punished with a miserable loan season in Monaco.
Saviola was isolated and unhappy in Monte Carlo, and scored only nine goals - far below his average of 15 per season for Barca.
He looks even more isolated and miserable at the moment, training alone in Barcelona and waiting to learn his new destination.
Last week the little Argentine - under contract at Barca until 2006 - said that he'd "not really enjoyed himself at Monaco" and that he'd "love to play for Barcelona again."
No such luck. Laporta and Barca coach Frank Rijkaard have ruled out Saviola returning to the Camp Nou unless he accepts a wage cut, which Cabrera continues to refuse.
Atletico Madrid, Espanyol and Sevilla are all interested in Saviola but cannot afford his six-million salary. It seems that Barca will again have to pay around half of his salary themselves, as they did last year, just to get rid of him.
Figo, the same as Saviola, has refused to help his departure from Madrid by accepting a pay cut. Inter Milan are top of the list of clubs interested in him, but are reluctant to pay a player who is almost 33, six million euros per season.
Figo, of course, was the first "Galactico" of Real president Florentino Perez, controversially snatched from Barcelona five years ago.
His relationship with Perez is now very sour. Two weeks ago Liverpool agreed to take Figo on loan, with his salary intact, only for Perez to sabotage the deal by insisting on a three million euro transfer fee.
Understandably, Liverpool backed off, to Figo's chagrin. He was not originally on the list of players for Real's tour of America and Asia, but had little choice but to get on the plane last week once the Liverpool deal had fallen through.
Figo looks isolated and unhappy on the tour, rarely speaking to his team-mates, hanging on his mobile phone waiting for news.
He has hardly spoken to coach Vanderlei Luxemburgo since the two clashed four months ago. Luxemburgo has been quoted by Madrid sports daily Marca as saying that he is "desperate to see the back of Figo", calling him "a poisonous presence in the dressing-room".
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