Taylor (l) has made his voice heard in the football world
For many footballers, their career playing is the most lucrative stage of their working lives.
PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor is one of the exceptions.
Part of Taylor's brief is the welfare of retired professionals and his own career since he quit playing has soared.
The best paid union leader in the UK, his annual salary including benefits tops £400,000.
Some may snipe at the amount but dissenting voices within Taylor's organisation would be few.
For the 56-year-old has built up a powerful union since he took up his post in 1981.
Then it was a shoestring operation, employing a couple of people.
Twenty years on, it is a powerful organisation with more than 50 staff and rich enough to splash out £2m for a Lowry painting.
It also has huge clout within the game, as is evident from how seriously the threat of a strike by players was taken.
It is a success story for a former professional whose greatest playing achievement was a Division Two runners-up medal with Birmingham in 1972.
Taylor's interest in union affairs began much earlier in his career when he was a teenage apprentice at Bolton in the early 1960s.
He played an active part in landmark Eastham case in 1963, which abolished the maximum wage of £20.
Loyalty
His union career has moved on but even his fiercest critics cannot dispute that loyalty to his members is still central to his method of carrying out his job.
Whatever the issue, Taylor pops up to support the players.
As head of international players' union, Fifpro, he proved a thorn in the side of Fifa and Uefa over negotiations for implementing a new transfer system.
He was there to defend Premiership players in the furore over high wages and he backed Ryan Giggs' right to a testimonial.
He even gave spitting the thumbs up, saying it was essential for players to "clear their passages".
He is unafraid of confrontation with those on the other side of the fence.
Those with whom he has had spats with include Fifa president Sepp Blatter, Chelsea chairman Ken Bates and David Mellor, who led the Football Task Force.
Image
Taylor understands the importance of public perception and under his guidance the PFA has set up a course to teach those in the game how to deal with the media.
He is also tireless in his efforts to promote his union's cause himself on TV and radio.
And having perfected the art of talking without stopping for breath, his case often becomes literally unanswerable.
There have also been darker moments in his PFA career.
The debacle over the "men-only" award ceremonies in 1999 did not help the image of the PFA as a modern union.
And there are few English fans and players who would now back his condemnation of the appointment of a foreign coach for the national team.
But as recent events have shown, the PFA is a powerful body.
While in Germany, only 25% of professionals belong to the footballing union, the PFA has solid support among British players, even the Premiership high earners.
And this is in no small part due to former right-winger Taylor, whose dogged determination has proved more successful round the meeting table than on the football field.