O'Neill: 'Some players are overpaid'

Sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe has courted controversy this week by claiming the wages collected by Premier League stars such as Chelsea and England captain John Terry are "obscene" - remarks that have infuriated Chelsea, but he has refused to back down despite being forced to admit the figures he quoted were overblown.

O'Neill, when asked for his opinions on the matter, told BBC Sport: "I do not begrudge the top-quality players getting well paid and I don't care what era you happen to be in. I haven't got a major problem with that, what I do is the follow-on from that, that the very average players are getting well paid and that has been a bit of a problem."

Chelsea expressed their anger that Terry - who is thought to earn around £130,000 per week, not the £150,000 stated by Sutcliffe - had been singled out in the matter. Manager Avram Grant claimed it was unfair to pick out his captain, or indeed focus specifically on footballers to make his point.

Grant said: "John is the captain and you need to learn how he led the team with full commitment in a very difficult time. This is leadership, this is captaincy. He deserves every penny. His leadership, I can guarantee you, is one of top in the history of this position.

"Everybody likes to speak about the money of the footballers. Why does nobody speak about singers who get more money in one year than any player?

"Why don't they speak about talented tennis players like Maria Sharapova for example, who, I think, at 20 years old, has more money than any other player?"

Sutcliffe, however, has stuck to his guns - and the wider issue he has tried to raise - despite admitting he got his figures wrong.

Sutcliffe told BBC Radio Five Live: "I am not attacking players. This is about whether football can sustain the losses that Chelsea have. I stand corrected - I said Chelsea's losses were £250million and I understand it's £220million over two years, and John's salary is not £150,000 a week, it's closer to £130,000.

"To the ordinary man and woman in the street that would be seen as obscene because they cannot relate to that. Link that to ticket prices and people are being priced out of the game. It's not an attack on individuals - John Terry is a great football player and a great England captain."