Salary cap in football - article by Jason Stockwood (Grimsby Town)

[justsomebloke]

There's an article in The Guardian today where Jason Stockwood (Chairman of Grimsby Town) argues the case for a salary cap in English football:
Time for a salary cap to keep leagues competitive and reduce agents’ influence | Football League | The Guardian

It raises an interesting debate. The arguments Stockwood marshals include a fairer distribution of resources, removal of conflicts of interest, reducing agents' proportion of the take and ensuring competitive balance through the pyramid. The MLS cap is invoked as an example to follow.

For me, the big question is the viability of a cap in an environment where many leagues of roughly comparable quality and pulling power are competing for the same resources. It works for leagues like NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB because they are effectively unchallenged at the top of the global pyramid, and will be able to attract the top global talent in any case. This is not the case for anyone in football, and the example of the MLS hardly suggests that this arrangement is something that strengthens the competitiveness of the league against other leagues? Stockwood vaguely suggests this could be solved by "benchmarking" the cap against other leagues to ensure competitiveness, but that does not seem very persuasive.

There are further problems too. The salary cap is not a stand-alone element - it is essentially one element in a balanced system designed to foster parity in the league. It is linked to a controlled skewed access to talent through the draft, and not least to guaranteed contracts, and also required minimum spending on wages by teams. Without those, a cap would simply be a way to dramatically and systematically reduce the players' share of the income. And it presupposes a hugely more equal level of spending on wages by all clubs in the league than what is the case in the PL today.

Given that, I don't see how it could work to just take one element of the NA system, and plug it into a situation where so many of the basic factors are radically different. Square plug, round hole.

 

[SilentWitness]

I do think something should happen. Not sure if a salary cap or a more even distribution of wealth in the football league but the parachute payments from PL to Championship are too much/hold too much of a weight now because of the consistent growth of the PL. We are on course for all three relegated teams getting promoted which doesn't feel right. They're not just on track but they're blitzing the rest of the league (aside from Ipswich).

 

[justsomebloke]

I do think something should happen. Not sure if a salary cap or a more even distribution of wealth in the football league but the parachute payments from PL to Championship are too much/hold too much of a weight now because of the consistent growth of the PL. We are on course for all three relegated teams getting promoted which doesn't feel right. They're not just on track but they're blitzing the rest of the league (aside from Ipswich).

Not that I disagree that parachute payments are an issue, but it should be remembered I think that the three relegated teams this season are not your typical relegees - they are all comparatively big, well-resourced clubs on a different level from, say, Norwich, West Brom or Watford. It would be surprising if they didn't do this well.

 

[SilentWitness]

Not that I disagree that parachute payments are an issue, but it should be remembered I think that the three relegated teams this season are not your typical relegees - they are all comparatively big, well-resourced clubs on a different level from, say, Norwich, West Brom or Watford. It would be surprising if they didn't do this well.

Indeed, but football is meant to be 'competitive'. Aside from just this year, most seasons we see a team bounce back.

 

[adexkola]

@justsomebloke

1. Players are not leaving for the Saudi League en masse, are they?

2. I see this argument that the players "deserve all of the income", but why? They aren't the only factors in the equation. The game isn't financially healthy today. There should be an equilibrium point where players, club staff, clubs in the top flight and the pyramid, and fans (both in the stands and in tv) can benefit. A salary cap makes wage inflation more manageable.

I've said it before and I'll say it again; if you guys just learnt the right lessons from American sports, football would be better off. Ignore the cheerleaders and ads, take the principles that make our sports more fair and less dependent on the riches of your owner or a ton of fans from glory days in the 90s. Make success dependent on competency in scouting, youth development, transfers, and coaching only.

 

[Hughes35]

Something has to change.

I believe there should be a salary gap as part of FFP. Probably a proportion of your turnover as wages and no player can earn over a set amount.

To be honest, I'm amazed there isn't more lower league football on TV and spread the wealth that way. It BBC or ITV both showed two games a weekend (4 games in total) from League 1 / 2 people would start to take much more interest in those divisions and money would start to filter down the pyramid.

 

[strandty]

The EFL tried to bring in a salary cap in 2020/21 and it got scrapped when the PFA got involved and the independent panel ruled it as being unlawful and unenforceable. I was actually working for Grimsby at the time and we knew it would pretty much get thrown out quickly. If you need to get agreements in place where the players/agents are agreeing to limit how much they can earn, it'll struggle to get

The only way it'll be enforceable is similar to in the EFL, where it's the SCMP (Salary Cost Management Protocol). League One clubs are allowed spend 60% of turnover on wages, but also 100% of 'football fortune'. In League Two it's 50% of turnover and 100% of football fortune.

 

[711]

To those that think English football is on it's knees, we have more professional clubs now than ever before. In addition to the 92 of the Premier and EFL there 21 National League clubs now fully professional.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_League_(English_football)

 

[justsomebloke]

@justsomebloke

1. Players are not leaving for the Saudi League en masse, are they?

2. I see this argument that the players "deserve all of the income", but why? They aren't the only factors in the equation. The game isn't financially healthy today. There should be an equilibrium point where players, club staff, clubs in the top flight and the pyramid, and fans (both in the stands and in tv) can benefit. A salary cap makes wage inflation more manageable.

I've said it before and I'll say it again; if you guys just learnt the right lessons from American sports, football would be better off. Ignore the cheerleaders and ads, take the principles that make our sports more fair and less dependent on the riches of your owner or a ton of fans from glory days in the 90s. Make success dependent on competency in scouting, youth development, transfers, and coaching only.

Don't believe I've mentioned Saudi Arabia? The point is simply that if one league introduces a salary cap, then it obviously puts itself at a competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis other leagues who have no such limitations.

You may have seen the argument that players "deserve all of the income", but you've not seen it from me. My point was that this is a challenge for the NA systems (or at least the NHL, which is the one I know in some detail), to such an extent that it has caused several major labor disputes that have wiped out entire seasons. They have resolved it by agreeing with the Unions that players should receive a certain proportion of the revenue, which is ensured by three things: Guaranteed contracts, a cap spending floor and a salary cap adjusted on the basis of revenue. Which is one of a great many reasons why you can't just put in a salary cap while ignoring that it really only works as part of a general system geared to heavily incentivising parity and controlling costs.

I think there are both pros and cons with the NA system compared to the global one. Personally I think a league like the NHL have gone way overboard in enforced parity, to the point where it's becoming a bit of a boring joke exactly because it's no longer about creating a more level playing field where success is basically a product of running your organisation well. It's starting to look a lot more like an enforced lottery designed to ensure that everyone gets a kick at the bucket every now and then, and where it's actually intentionally impossible to build a strong team and keep it together.

But wherever you stand on that issue, it should be obvious that you can't simply pick out bits and pieces of that system and apply them to the completely different realities of a global league system based on an entirely different basic logic.

 

[Bertie Wooster]

I don't go along with the manufactured 'competitive balance' stuff tbh.

Obviously, Sports need to have rules and competitors / teams shouldn't be allowed to break them.

But handicapping teams for having advantages like more money, bigger grounds, larger and more global fan bases, coming from a bigger city not a small town or village, etc, in order to manufacture a more level playing field where anyone can win makes it more like Sports Entertainment rather than competitive sport in my view.

Just like how, in an individual sport, if a competitor is quicker, bigger, stronger - just generally better than the others (i.e. Usain Bolt) - they shouldn't handicap them to try and make it 'a more competitive balance'. That person will just have their era of dominance for as long as they can, and it's up to others to come along and overtake them - not up to authorities to start handicapping them in order to manufacture different results.

 

[tomaldinho1]

The solution on the wage cap does seem quite simple to me - you basically set it up like an employee matching pensions scheme.

Clubs have a cap - and they are free to pay over that but them have to match that payment which goes into a pot for the Football League. It stops the nation states cheating and hiding things by allowing them to pay through the nose, it almost makes them a more positive force to be honest as you will see the knock on effect, for example of City, and million of pounds cascading down into the lower leagues.

You can't, not should we stop, meritocracy being rewarded but it is true we need to make the league more competitive and try and close the financial gap from the top to bottom. FFP does work over time, a salary cap would also help, you can see with clubs like Villa, like Brighton, that it's about getting your recruitment right and there is opportunity to break into Europe. It will always be lopsided, we can't undo the past, but you have to make it as financially attractive as possible for owners to come in, put money into their clubs and academies (I do think this is undeniably there now looking at players sales like Grealish, Caceido etc.) and infra.

Agents can get fecked though. Make every PL transfer capped at £5m. That's still an obscene amount of money and stops the ludicrous amounts we hear of in transfers like Haaland.

 

[adexkola]

Don't believe I've mentioned Saudi Arabia? The point is simply that if one league introduces a salary cap, then it obviously puts itself at a competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis other leagues who have no such limitations.

You may have seen the argument that players "deserve all of the income", but you've not seen it from me. My point was that this is a challenge for the NA systems (or at least the NHL, which is the one I know in some detail), to such an extent that it has caused several major labor disputes that have wiped out entire seasons. They have resolved it by agreeing with the Unions that players should receive a certain proportion of the revenue, which is ensured by three things: Guaranteed contracts, a cap spending floor and a salary cap adjusted on the basis of revenue. Which is one of a great many reasons why you can't just put in a salary cap while ignoring that it really only works as part of a general system geared to heavily incentivising parity and controlling costs.

I think there are both pros and cons with the NA system compared to the global one. Personally I think a league like the NHL have gone way overboard in enforced parity, to the point where it's becoming a bit of a boring joke exactly because it's no longer about creating a more level playing field where success is basically a product of running your organisation well. It's starting to look a lot more like an enforced lottery designed to ensure that everyone gets a kick at the bucket every now and then, and where it's actually intentionally impossible to build a strong team and keep it together.

But wherever you stand on that issue, it should be obvious that you can't simply pick out bits and pieces of that system and apply them to the completely different realities of a global league system based on an entirely different basic logic.

1. I know you didn't mention Saudi Arabia; I'm saying the existence of a league with theoretically bottomless wealth hasn't caused a drain of talent from Europe. The best want to play in La Liga/the Premier League. I don't buy that a salary cap would cause the talent to leave and the football quality to finish.

2. I agree, a salary cap should not happen in isolation. That would be a mistake.

3. I think there is a misconception here; NA leagues don't enforce parity for parity's sake. There have been dynasties on this end (Bulls, Patriots, Warriors come to mind) but it's solely because of a combination of transcendent talent AND shrewd coaching AND excellent front offices. If you can be consistently brilliant at all phases of sports management, it will be hard to knock you off your perch. I don't follow the NHL, and those level of restrictions seem absurd.

For me it's not about ensuring each team in the PL wins the league once every 20 years. The best teams should win. It shouldn't be based on money though. Otherwise there's this race to spend more and more, which creates a runaway train. Create a level playing field and let the best managed teams win.

If the NBA was in Europe, the Knicks would be 10 time champions and the Spurs would be flirting with relegation, which is absurd.

 

[adexkola]

I don't go along with the manufactured 'competitive balance' stuff tbh.

Obviously, Sports need to have rules and competitors / teams shouldn't be allowed to break them.

But handicapping teams for having advantages like more money, bigger grounds, larger and more global fan bases, coming from a bigger city not a small town or village, etc, in order to manufacture a more level playing field where anyone can win makes it more like Sports Entertainment rather than competitive sport in my view.

Just like how, in an individual sport, if a competitor is quicker, bigger, stronger - just generally better than the others (i.e. Usain Bolt) - they shouldn't handicap them to try and make it 'a more competitive balance'. That person will just have their era of dominance for as long as they can, and it's up to others to come along and overtake them - not up to authorities to start handicapping them in order to manufacture different results.

That's a nonsense.

There's no reason why your revenue should be determined by the amount of fans you have, or the city you're based in.

A team could do everything right. They could bring a nice crop of youth through, have an ambitious coach, and a shrewd transfer strategy, yet have a glass ceiling on what they can accomplish because they are in a small town and they have no fans in India willing to buy noodles plastered with pictures of their players?

 

[Gavinb33]

Something has to change.

I believe there should be a salary gap as part of FFP. Probably a proportion of your turnover as wages and no player can earn over a set amount.

To be honest, I'm amazed there isn't more lower league football on TV and spread the wealth that way. It BBC or ITV both showed two games a weekend (4 games in total) from League 1 / 2 people would start to take much more interest in those divisions and money would start to filter down the pyramid.

This is coming i'm sure ive read something recently that suggested United would have to comply with something akin to whats described here.

 

[Gavinb33]

1. I know you didn't mention Saudi Arabia; I'm saying the existence of a league with theoretically bottomless wealth hasn't caused a drain of talent from Europe. The best want to play in La Liga/the Premier League. I don't buy that a salary cap would cause the talent to leave and the football quality to finish.

2. I agree, a salary cap should not happen in isolation. That would be a mistake.

3. I think there is a misconception here; NA leagues don't enforce parity for parity's sake. There have been dynasties on this end (Bulls, Patriots, Warriors come to mind) but it's solely because of a combination of transcendent talent AND shrewd coaching AND excellent front offices. If you can be consistently brilliant at all phases of sports management, it will be hard to knock you off your perch. I don't follow the NHL, and those level of restrictions seem absurd.

For me it's not about ensuring each team in the PL wins the league once every 20 years. The best teams should win. It shouldn't be based on money though. Otherwise there's this race to spend more and more, which creates a runaway train. Create a level playing field and let the best managed teams win.

If the NBA was in Europe, the Knicks would be 10 time champions and the Spurs would be flirting with relegation, which is absurd.

The NA sports thing doesnt wash really because they have a draft system that works for them and allows a transcendent player to play in a small market and the player really has little to no choice but to go there and play for that team, where in football the player has all the power and until you take that away nothing will change

 

[Murder on Zidanes Floor]

I do think something should happen. Not sure if a salary cap or a more even distribution of wealth in the football league but the parachute payments from PL to Championship are too much/hold too much of a weight now because of the consistent growth of the PL. We are on course for all three relegated teams getting promoted which doesn't feel right. They're not just on track but they're blitzing the rest of the league (aside from Ipswich).

I always feel like the cap will be a way for owners to shirk spending the TV rights and keep it for themselves.

 

[Skills]

Salary caps are stupid. Football doesn't need salary caps, it needs squad caps

- 23 is the total number of 21+ aged players you're allowed to hold as a club (this includes loaned out players)
- You can only register 19 senior players in your PL squad
- Each matchday squad must have 5 academy graduates (players at the club aged 17 or earlier)
- No buyback clauses
- The players who don't meet the 21+ cut off walk on a free at the end of the transfer window (this will be a cluster feck at the start with the inflated squads we have now, but soon it'll settle down)

It'd introduce more variation and randomness to the game. If you have an injury crisis you might have to start an under 21 backline - which is fine, because these wildcards is what keeps football interesting.

 

[Skills]

I always feel like the cap will be a way for owners to shirk spending the TV rights and keep it for themselves.

That's basically what the goal is of salary caps. It's one step away from owners lifting trophies like in the American sports.

 

[Murder on Zidanes Floor]

That's basically what the goal is of salary caps. It's one step away from owners lifting trophies like in the American sports.

The players generate the profit, let them keep it. Maybe a % of the rights have to go to players and staff

 

[711]

Salary caps are stupid. Football doesn't need salary caps, it needs squad caps

- 23 is the total number of 21+ aged players you're allowed to hold as a club (this includes loanees)
- You can only register 19 senior players in your PL squad
- Each matchday squad must have 5 academy graduates (players at the club aged 17 or earlier)
- No buyback clauses
- The players who don't meet the 21+ cut off walk on a free at the end of the transfer window (this will be a cluster feck at the start with the inflated squads we have now, but soon it'll settle down)

It'd introduce more variation and randomness to the game. If you have an injury crisis you might have to start an under 21 backline - which is fine, because these wildcards is what keeps football interesting.

I don't disagree with the principle, particularly regarding loans, but if the premier league did this unilaterally it couldn't compete in Europe. Would have to be a Uefa thing I suppose, but would you trust them not to cheat?

 

[Skills]

I don't disagree with the principle, particularly regarding loans, but if the premier league did this unilaterally it couldn't compete in Europe. Would have to be a Uefa thing I suppose, but would you trust them not to cheat?

That issue exists with salary caps as well. Squad caps need to exist at all levels, so that talent is spread out across all levels.

I'd argue squad caps need to exist at youth levels as well. Clubs shouldn't be allowed to just farm loads of youth players when they could be playing elsewhere. It should 1 in 1 out system.

 

[SilentWitness]

Salary caps are stupid. Football doesn't need salary caps, it needs squad caps

- 23 is the total number of 21+ aged players you're allowed to hold as a club (this includes loaned out players)
- You can only register 19 senior players in your PL squad
- Each matchday squad must have 5 academy graduates (players at the club aged 17 or earlier)
- No buyback clauses
- The players who don't meet the 21+ cut off walk on a free at the end of the transfer window (this will be a cluster feck at the start with the inflated squads we have now, but soon it'll settle down)

It'd introduce more variation and randomness to the game. If you have an injury crisis you might have to start an under 21 backline - which is fine, because these wildcards is what keeps football interesting.

There was an article recently in the athletic about the 6+5 rule that Blatter wanted to implement 10+ years ago. Apparently only 2 of the last 13 CL winners would have complied with it (Barcelona in 2011 and Bayern in 2020). Essentially it was saying each team needed to have 6 players from the nation the club was in.

 

[adexkola]

The NA sports thing doesnt wash really because they have a draft system that works for them and allows a transcendent player to play in a small market and the player really has little to no choice but to go there and play for that team, where in football the player has all the power and until you take that away nothing will change

They can't move for the first 5 years, yes. After their first contract they can choose to move.

But you're missing the point. Players don't mind playing for small market teams that give them a chance of winning trophies. And they still get paid, close to what they'd get playing for big market teams.

I always feel like the cap will be a way for owners to shirk spending the TV rights and keep it for themselves.

Not necessarily. TV rights on this end keep on going up, as well as player compensation.

The players generate the profit, let them keep it. Maybe a % of the rights have to go to players and staff

This is also false. The players are part of an ecosystem. The lower league clubs that develop them. The big clubs that provide them with a platform to do their thing. The fans that pay. The owners that provide capital and know how. They should all benefit from the profits in football. It's not a "all money as possible to the players". That's partly why the game is fecked

 

[Bertie Wooster]

That's a nonsense.

There's no reason why your revenue should be determined by the amount of fans you have, or the city you're based in.

A team could do everything right. They could bring a nice crop of youth through, have an ambitious coach, and a shrewd transfer strategy, yet have a glass ceiling on what they can accomplish because they are in a small town and they have no fans in India willing to buy noodles plastered with pictures of their players?

That's how sport works - unless you manufacture it.

A competitor can try their absolute hardest and do everything right - practice more than everyone else, live and eat healthier than all, and still not have the natural ability or physical advantages to win anything or reach the very top level. Should they be rewarded by handicapping others, because it's 'not fair' to the less naturally talented, quicker, taller, stronger, etc, ones that are otherwise 'doing everything right?'

And in the case of Football, you say teams revenue shouldn't be decided by how much they themselves generate - and yet think it's fine for teams to benefit from money generated by others!? You say they shouldn't be punished for coming from small towns / villages, or not having successfully achieved much national or global support themselves? But what you're actually advocating is teams being unduly rewarded / compensated for that, and others the ones being punished for having done so and, in the end, it just potentially helping their rivals to success over them.

I guess a lot comes down to the interpretation of 'competitive sport'. For me, it's people / teams competing against each other in order to try to win. And if a person or team is winning a lot then that's just how it goes. It's not up to them to help out their rivals, or the authorities to try to handicap them. Others, especially when it comes to team sports, particularly Football, seem to focus on it having to be a 'competitive balance' where you try to manipulate things to manufacture closeness.

 

[adexkola]

Salary caps are stupid. Football doesn't need salary caps, it needs squad caps

- 23 is the total number of 21+ aged players you're allowed to hold as a club (this includes loaned out players)
- You can only register 19 senior players in your PL squad
- Each matchday squad must have 5 academy graduates (players at the club aged 17 or earlier)
- No buyback clauses
- The players who don't meet the 21+ cut off walk on a free at the end of the transfer window (this will be a cluster feck at the start with the inflated squads we have now, but soon it'll settle down)

It'd introduce more variation and randomness to the game. If you have an injury crisis you might have to start an under 21 backline - which is fine, because these wildcards is what keeps football interesting.

Squad caps are great as well (I'd cancel loans for all but emergency purposes) but salary caps aren't stupid. Not when clubs are struggling to break even. An agreement on profit sharing between labor and management has long precedents on both sides of the Atlantic

 

[Skills]

Squad caps are great as well (I'd cancel loans for all but emergency purposes) but salary caps aren't stupid. Not when clubs are struggling to break even. An agreement on profit sharing between labor and management has long precedents on both sides of the Atlantic

people tried to make this argument during COVID. How the players needed to take paycuts to support the clubs - and then the same clubs went out and spent 10s-100s of millions on transfer fees.

 

[711]

That issue exists with salary caps as well. Squad caps need to exist at all levels, so that talent is spread out across all levels.

I'd argue squad caps need to exist at youth levels as well. Clubs shouldn't be allowed to just farm loads of youth players when they could be playing elsewhere. It should 1 in 1 out system.

Indeed. So are you saying the Prem should introduce the caps unilaterally, and lose in Europe, or not? I'm in two minds really, but I'm honest enough to admit we wouldn't be really competitive in Europe if we did, which would be quite a loss.

 

[adexkola]

people tried to make this argument during COVID. How the players needed to take paycuts to support the clubs - and then the same clubs went out and spent 10s-100s of millions on transfer fees.

And that is the reason why players should not go into these sorts of agreements without strict rules on how funds can be forgone. Clubs do have to set money aside for transfers... The question is how much. The answer shouldn't be "whatever the players are content with leaving behind, which could be zero if they had their way"

 

[diarm]

Squad number caps rather than salary caps for me. Stop bigger clubs from stockpiling players, particularly at youth level, and the resources will naturally end up more fairly spread.

 

[justsomebloke]

1. I know you didn't mention Saudi Arabia; I'm saying the existence of a league with theoretically bottomless wealth hasn't caused a drain of talent from Europe. The best want to play in La Liga/the Premier League. I don't buy that a salary cap would cause the talent to leave and the football quality to finish.

2. I agree, a salary cap should not happen in isolation. That would be a mistake.

3. I think there is a misconception here; NA leagues don't enforce parity for parity's sake. There have been dynasties on this end (Bulls, Patriots, Warriors come to mind) but it's solely because of a combination of transcendent talent AND shrewd coaching AND excellent front offices. If you can be consistently brilliant at all phases of sports management, it will be hard to knock you off your perch. I don't follow the NHL, and those level of restrictions seem absurd.

For me it's not about ensuring each team in the PL wins the league once every 20 years. The best teams should win. It shouldn't be based on money though. Otherwise there's this race to spend more and more, which creates a runaway train. Create a level playing field and let the best managed teams win.

If the NBA was in Europe, the Knicks would be 10 time champions and the Spurs would be flirting with relegation, which is absurd.

1. You don't think limiting the level of pay PL clubs are able to offer is going to have any effect on their ability to sign players from other leagues?

3. Yes, NA leagues do enforce parity for parity's sake. Explicitly. There may be important differences between different leagues in how restrictive the cap and other elements are, but enforcing parity is the fundamental rationale of the entry draft system, and also at the very least an important part of the motivation for a salary cap. If the motivation was to just create a level playing field where money shouldn't have a big impact, a salary cap would be enough. The entry draft on top of that is an explicitly redistributive mechanism, the whole point of which is to give the worst teams the best young talent. In other words, it rewards teams for doing badly, which is the exact opposite of what you're asking for.

In the NHL at least, dynasties - in the sense of teams that remain contenders for 10 or 20 years - are now exceptionally difficult, to the point where a cyclical approach to team building has become almost universal. It's gotten to a point where sports writers will lambast weak teams for winning, because that is seen as a counterproductive and stupid approach in a situation where they should be racing towards the bottom of the standings in order to get better draft picks and hence speed up the rebuild. And the worst of it is they're right. At some point you naturally have to draft, sign and trade well and build a well-coached team, but the bottom line is accumulating a big enough number of lottery tickets and having them come due at the right time. It's ridiculous.

I agree the big club success monopoly has its own drawbacks, but that is so built into the whole logic of league systems globally (outside the US) that I don't really think you can tamper with that with partial measures. And in any case, no one is in a position of dominance strong enough to start doing that. At least as long as we don't get the superleague thing, that might do it. Which illustrates a further limitation we haven't touched on yet: Where do you put a cap? If it is to make any sense, you have to put that somewhere around the middle - a level of sustainable expenditure that could be sustained by mid-level PL clubs. Then you need redistributive mechanisms that will allow that below average clubs to raise their expenditure to more or less that level. Otherwise, what's the point? Which would mean that the Chelseas and the Man Uniteds would also be limited to the sort of spending Wolves or Everton could support. So, how does anyone in the PL then compete with Bayern München or Barcelona for the top international talent? If you're not going to get that kind of hit, you'd need a league consisting only of big, rich clubs, where you could put a cap level that still leaves everyone competitive internationally.

 

[justsomebloke]

This is also false. The players are part of an ecosystem. The lower league clubs that develop them. The big clubs that provide them with a platform to do their thing. The fans that pay. The owners that provide capital and know how. They should all benefit from the profits in football. It's not a "all money as possible to the players". That's partly why the game is fecked

Yeah well, the low league clubs that develop them don't really get a piece of the pie, do they. The players just disappear when they get signed by a major league team. Unlike in football.

I don't really think there's much of a "fairness" or "moral" argument either way when it comes to player salaries. Maybe you can say that they don't deserve to get all that money, but then again you could ask if it's any fairer that owners just pocket a bigger profit.

In any case, whether it's the free market as in football or the corporate monopoly approach of the NA system, the players get a major portion of the revenue. In the NHL, it's 50% (and is regulated in the Collective Bargaining Agreement). In football it's a good deal higher than that I think.

 

[Murder on Zidanes Floor]

They can't move for the first 5 years, yes. After their first contract they can choose to move.

But you're missing the point. Players don't mind playing for small market teams that give them a chance of winning trophies. And they still get paid, close to what they'd get playing for big market teams.



Not necessarily. TV rights on this end keep on going up, as well as player compensation.



This is also false. The players are part of an ecosystem. The lower league clubs that develop them. The big clubs that provide them with a platform to do their thing. The fans that pay. The owners that provide capital and know how. They should all benefit from the profits in football. It's not a "all money as possible to the players". That's partly why the game is fecked

What major player came through "the lower leagues"

Sorry but people pay to watch the best footballer play the game.

 

[711]

What major player came through "the lower leagues"

Sorry but people pay to watch the best footballer play the game.

Wright, Ferdinand, Vardy. Easier to remember the centre forwards I suppose.

 

[Murder on Zidanes Floor]

Wright, Ferdinand, Vardy. Easier to remember the centre forwards I suppose.

Cool, so very very few.

 

[711]

Cool, so very very few.

You did ask. Be nicer to people, they'll love you for it.

 

[JSArsenal]

Where will the money go in the case of a salary cap?

I'm not sure what the issue is with player salaries? What's the alternative? The money go towards broadcasters and billionaire club owners? I'd more see if transfer fees and agent fees can be reduced.

No way a Pepe or a Ben white should have cost what they did. But no one will want to be the one to reduce transfer fees.

 

[adexkola]

Where will the money go in the case of a salary cap?

I'm not sure what the issue is with player salaries? What's the alternative? The money go towards broadcasters and billionaire club owners? I'd more see if transfer fees and agent fees can be reduced.

No way a Pepe or a Ben white should have cost what they did. But no one will want to be the one to reduce transfer fees.

Reducing gate fees for fans coming to cheer on their team and provide the atmosphere that is attractive on TV?

More down the pyramid?

Grassroots development of talent and coaching?

The women's game?

If you think that all will be ignored and it'll go into the owners pockets then fair enough

 

[Mb194dc]

It'll never happen whilst there's a chance big brand clubs can be relegated.

 

[Oranges038]

I don't go along with the manufactured 'competitive balance' stuff tbh.

Obviously, Sports need to have rules and competitors / teams shouldn't be allowed to break them.

But handicapping teams for having advantages like more money, bigger grounds, larger and more global fan bases, coming from a bigger city not a small town or village, etc, in order to manufacture a more level playing field where anyone can win makes it more like Sports Entertainment rather than competitive sport in my view.

Just like how, in an individual sport, if a competitor is quicker, bigger, stronger - just generally better than the others (i.e. Usain Bolt) - they shouldn't handicap them to try and make it 'a more competitive balance'. That person will just have their era of dominance for as long as they can, and it's up to others to come along and overtake them - not up to authorities to start handicapping them in order to manufacture different results.

He should have been spancelled.

 

[Bucephalus74]

What major player came through "the lower leagues"

Sorry but people pay to watch the best footballer play the game.

Seriously? Jamie Vardy.