be on a par with〜

少し前のCNNの記事からです。豊富な資金で昨年58年ぶりにプレミアリーグを制覇したマンチェスターCの事を取り上げています。
Are footballers on a par with bankers?

Manchester City's owners have led the way in offering bigger and bigger salaries to players. (Getty Images)
With the Olympics afterglow now starting to fade, football is stepping back into the breach to fill the sporting public’s thirst for entertainment.

The big question has been, in Britain at least, whether the positive vibes created by the buzz of athletes giving their all for victory will survive now that the focus has returned to a group whose behaviors have generally been decidedly more questionable.

An Olympian who trips at the last hurdle is usually applauded for having a go, but spoilt millionaires whose off-field indiscretions are regularly reported in the tabloid press don’t get much sympathy when they writhe around on the pitch trying to con match officials.

In fact, a recent report suggests that footballers may have more in common with another particularly reviled - and yet also highly envied - section of society: Bankers.

While high-flyers in the financial sector have long been getting year-on-year pay rises much greater than the average workers they employ, it has not gone unnoticed that men who kick leather about a pitch have also become estranged from the fans who pay to watch them.

Since the English Premier League started in 1992, its stars’ pay packets have apparently ballooned by 1,508% - compared to a 186% rise for the average UK worker. Is it any coincidence that the Premier League is sponsored by a bank?

A study by think-tank High Pay Center revealed that the prices supporters pay to watch top-flight English matches have gone up by more than 1,000%.

While once you could have got into a Liverpool game for £4, the cheapest seats are now £45 ($70). At Arsenal, which has upgraded stadiums in that time, it’s gone from £5 to £51 ($80).

Meanwhile, player wages now make up 70% of clubs’ turnover as opposed to 48% in 1997. It’s little wonder that teams are increasingly in debt.

http://worldsport.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/22/are-footballers-on-a-par-with-bankers/

parと言えばゴルフの「パー、基準打数」という意味が真っ先に思い浮かぶとは思いますが、「同等、同意、等価」「標準、基準、平均」という意味(『ジーニアス英和辞典』第4版、大修館書店)があります。be on a par with〜で「〜と同等の、〜と同じである」という意味(ibid)のイディオムになります。基本的な単語ではありますが、ゴルフのparの意味以外もチェックしておきます。
マンチェスターCは確かに昨年豊富な資金で獲得した選手が大活躍して優勝しました。しかし個人的にはサッカーは資金力だけでやっていけるスポーツではないと思っています。今年は他のチームの躍進にも期待したいです。(EnDough)