Could sponsors save our emergency services?

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With the recent rioting in London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Nottingham and Bristol making the headlines recently, police forces have been stretched to the limit.
However, even when they are not dealing with major rioting, police officers have to risk their lives to enforce the law.

Officers are often required to deal with violent criminals and dangerous situations. They are all too often under appreciated by everybody they deal with - even the victims of the crimes they are trying to help.

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Working as a soldier within the military is another under appreciated occupation.

The news is always full of stories about how our servicemen and women are sent overseas to fight a war, and are often not provided with the equipment they need to do their jobs properly. The reason is often purely financial.

Considering the severe danger that soldiers are put into on the front line, the chances are many sent over to fight will simply be killed or severely injured in battle.

Every day, I see posts on Facebook about the under appreciated soldiers who often don't return from their missions abroad.

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The UK healthcare sector is another area that often causes controversy with regards to salaries.

The role of doctors and nurses, GP's, surgeons and specialists involves saving and prolonging life; treating illness and disease; and performing specialist medical procedures.

People working in the medical industry have a career with immense responsibility, huge pressure and one in which lives are literally in their hands.

Taking into account that to become qualified can take up to 7 years of training, and to become a specialist can take much longer!

Top salaries of Police, Medical and Military personnel in the UK:

• Top police officers earn about £157,000 a year. * 
• Top military positions have a salary of around £100,000 a year.
• Top medical specialists can earn up to around £100,000.

*depending on location
These might seem like very generous figures, however when you compare that to the 50th top football player (Alessandro Del Piero, who plays for Juventus) earns £4.1 MILLION (according to Exploredia), suddenly a top police officer, military or specialist medical personnel wages doesn't seem very fair... 

(According to the same list, the top player is Cristiano Ronaldo, who plays for Real Madrid..  He earns £11.3 million!)

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Compared to police officers, soldiers and doctors or nurses, footballers have very little requirement for training; they are not responsible for the lives of others and they don't have to worry if their job will lead to their deaths!

Footballers incomes are made up from a combination of the ticket sales, television subscriptions and sponsorship deals.

If this combination can produce enough income to give individual players multi-million-pound salaries, could the same combination be used to increase the salaries and budgets of emergency services and military personnel?

• If a company is willing to sponsor a football match, could they also be persuaded to cough up a similar figure to back the NHS? 
• Instead of paying a premium figure to televise a football match, could broadcasters offer a financial aid towards the police department? (Especially considering that events such as the recent UK riots have already televised the police force in action, and they have appeared on enough channels recently!)
• Instead of using ticket sales money on a single player, could this money be used to provide military with a salary worthy of the danger soldiers are in every day?

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The main drawback to investing money into health care, emergency services and backing the military (from a company point of view) is that their logo wouldn't get seen by the same amount of people as would see it during a football match... 

But why can't they include their branding on the uniform of 100,000 police officers, 100,000 soldiers or 100,000 nurses uniforms instead?

Think of the benefits!:

• The people within these uniforms could receive a salary that is worth the risk and responsibility they are required to have in their jobs. The money could be increased thanks to the advertising income.
• Companies would have their branding on display in many more locations that one football match. 
• The company could save money - one logo appearing on around 100,000 uniforms could cost the company less than one logo on the back of a footballers shirt.
• The businesses sponsoring the emergency services and the military would receive far more respect for backing worthwhile industries.
• Everyone would win in the long run!

- TheLittlerich