"Yet they did nothing to stop that from happening, sitting fat and happy on their great contract"
It's the way the world works I'm afraid - reminds me of Winston Bogarde - who played a handful of games for Chelsea and pocketed a fortune.... According to Bogarde, it would be next to impossible to find a team that would offer him a contract comparable to the one he had at Chelsea: he was astounded at the salary the club had agreed on, as his value depreciated severely due to lack of first-team action, and decided to stay and honour his contract to the letter and appear for training every day, despite being only rarely selected to play. Of his contract he said, "Why should I throw fifteen million Euro away when it is already mine? At the moment I signed it was in fact my money, my contract"; in the end, he only appeared 11 times during his four-year tenure, reportedly earning
£40,000 a week during this period. He also observed, truthfully, that if he'd broken a leg he'd have been out on the street in seconds..........
You take care of yourself first I'm afraid