Salary cap back on the agenda

[bridge too far]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/dec/03/championship-credit-crunch-recession

 

Nice to see our esteemed chairman having his say

[benjii]

I'm impressed he managed not to have a go at anyone else.

[Andy_Porter]

A salary cap and a ticket price cap would go a long way to fixing the problems football has at the moment.

[once_bitterne]

How on earth would a salary cap in the CCC work when, every season, there will be 3 clubs from the Prem coming down with players on wages that will be far in excess of the CCC cap? Some of these contracts, which the clubs will have no legal way of getting out of, may have 3-4 seasons left to run.

 

It's a nice idea but will never happen.

[Alanh]

Interesting article suggesting that there are big problems ahead unless teams can get their spending under control. I hope it doesn't result in several clubs going into administration - not least because of the loss of jobs for the club employees - something which seems to be rarely considered by those that advocate admin for us.

 

Interesting to see that Burnley and Cardiff (and probably several others) have an explicit strategy which relies on being able to sell their more valuable players annually in order to be able to survive financially. I guess the fans don't like it but if it's the difference between having a CCC club or a League 1 club or no club at all I guess it's preferrable.

[Dicko]

How on earth would a salary cap in the CCC work when, every season, there will be 3 clubs from the Prem coming down with players on wages that will be far in excess of the CCC cap? Some of these contracts, which the clubs will have no legal way of getting out of, may have 3-4 seasons left to run.

 

It's a nice idea but will never happen.

 

They will obviously have to loan players out, or will have to be a little more sensible with Premier League contracts. Most clubs in the bottom half of the Premier League will have clauses surrounding relegation

[labibs]

That will also provide a massive bonus to the clubs coming down from the prem. That extra £8m or so in parachute payments, would represent an additional £4.8m a season that the club would be able to spend on players' wages, as against the standard operating turnover of other CCC clubs.

 

Also what kind of punishments could be inflicted on clubs who go over their 60%? If it was tantamount to a slap on the wrist it would be pointless. But anything stronger would be harsh, if say, your star striker get's injured and you are unable to pay the wages for a replacement.

 

Whilst there would be problems with its implementation, I am not necessarily against this idea. Clubs would still be able to cater for superstar players should they wish to, they would simply have make cuts elsewhere should they wish to. Clubs like Portsmouth paying in excess of 90% of their turnover on wages alone, is simply unsustainable in the long-term and I for one, don't want to see any club go out of existence (even Pompey)

[bridge too far]

It works in Rugby League, doesn't it?

[Flyer]

Id love it to be a flexible cap linked to income generated by the team, ie you can only spend 60% of your income on wages instead of 90+5 like most clubs now.

 

That way, clubs who have a big following still have an advantage and you wont have teams like Chelsea and Man City playing stupid money to player and running at a massive loss, leaving teams running as a business struggling to compete.

[corsacar saint]

Something has to give. Ridiculous wages especially in the premiership are going to kill the

game.[ I actually meant obscene wages]. As an aside, the old maxim, that it is only a

short career should never wash. Footballers can retrain like many private and public

workers have to in their lifetimes. That is excluding the ones who have so much money

that they will never have to work again.

Any sensible person who does not think footballers are grossly overpaid is surely

deluding themselves.

[Mao Cap]

Sweet.

 

Over half of Championship clubs are in favour, the article says, so could it actually happen? Hope so.

[Saint Bones]

In our National league ( A-League ) we have a salary cap for the team and then a Marquee player who's wages are not included in this.

 

It hasn't helped trying to lure to many names ( Well big names ) but the competition is normally fairly close each season.

 

I just cant see how they can implement it in todays game with the difference between the haves and the have nots so immense.

[saintjay77]

I think if they worked on this idea as guide lines and should a club that fails to keep within these gude lines go into administration then strickter punishments can be dished out. That would then limit the amount of clubs that risk all.

[stevegrant]

While the idea is an admirable one, with the way football clubs are run as such massive businesses these days, implementing a salary cap now simply wouldn't work. While it would ensure that clubs don't spend beyond their means on player wages, all it would do is increase the gap between the haves and the have nots, e.g. the Premier League and the Football League.

 

If it had been implemented (and maintained) back in the day when gate receipts were also split evenly between each club, it's quite unlikely that we'd have had the sort of foreign investment invasion that this country's had in the last 5 years or so. While clubs would have been free to spend whatever they wanted on transfer fees, they would have been unable to pay most of the astronomical wages, so they'd have had to have a more realistic budget, which would have kept the wage levels much lower than they are now.

 

Things were just starting to calm down on the wage and transfer fee front when Abramovich came in and took it all to a whole new level. A combination of the Abramovich factor, Carlton and Granada scandalously being allowed to renege on the ITV Digital contract and Football League clubs budgeting beyond their means based on that contract has put the game in the state that it is now.