AC/DC got it right; “Come on, come on, listen to the money talking.” It looks like VeloVeritas’ hot tip on ‘Bert bolts to Garmin; Brad flies to Sky,’ has unwound. Sky’s ‘capo,’ Rupert Murdoch has deep pockets, but at some stage he has to say- and following on from the musical intro – just like Donna and Babs did; “enough is enough, is enough!”
La Gazzetta dello Sport headlines today, 10th November; “Contad(oro) venti milioni per 4 anni!”
Yes, Bert is on five million euros for four years with our chums from Kazakhstan.
Rupert Murdoch may have a media empire that Citizen Kane could only have dreamed about; but he’s not sitting on top of a fair chunk of the world’s fossil fuel reserves.
Whilst boys like me get all excited about the deal, what’s Bert doing ?
He’s swimming in Curacao – I like the man’s style!
The Gazzetta also tells us – really or guestimation – what the other main men are paid (in euros; more-or-less the same as Sterling).
- Lance: 10 million (including endorsements)
- Valverde: 2.3 million (but he can’t spend any of that in Italy, still)
- Gilbert: 2 million
- Evans: 1.7 million
- Pozzato: 1 milione
- Cunego: 800,000
The last I heard, Boonen was on seven figures, and so is Cav.
[If you bump into me, ask me about Cav’s 800 grand barn conversion in the Isle of Man. Just that we’re a tad jumpy about those defamation laws, here at VR!]
It’s all a long way from the £10,000/annum which we were talking about recently as a realistic minimum wage for a British pro.
Interestingly, they reckon that Ercole Baldini was being paid more that Eddy Merckx was, a decade before the Belgian re-wrote the record books.
Oh, and the Gazzetta adds that Bert’s horoscope is good – “the stars are aligned and sex will be good!”
That man has it all!
Ciao, ciao.