Fixing Football

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Originally Posted by fakeyank

Why should a player not get paid for how good he is? Its like you being the most amazing programmer in the world and still making 60K a year for life!

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Sports are a bit different. NBA has a salary cap and I'm fairly sure the better players get paid more, not to mention huge sponsorship deals. Michael Jordan isnt a poor man.

A salary cap is simple, in principle. Say the rules are set that player wages can be no more than 75% of club earnings. Teams must have minimum number of players. That doesn't mean you can't pay one or more players very high amounts, and these amounts would naturally be higher and clubs with greater football revenues, but it does mean that A) there is at least a cap which will mean clubs can operate with some level of certainty and knowledge that all other teams have to work within the same rules, B) greater assurance that clubs won't go under and C) a more level playing field.

I'm sick and tired of these oligarch's toy clubs (Chelsea, Man City, PSG, Anzi, Malaga, etc). Let teams build success through hard work and intelligent development, not just dump in £500m of transfers over a year or two from somebody's backpocket - inflating wages and creating unfair competitive advantages.

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Originally Posted by Jam Persie

A salary cap is simple, in principle. Say the rules are set that player wages can be no more than 75% of club earnings. Teams must have minimum number of players. That doesn't mean you can't pay one or more players very high amounts, and these amounts would naturally be higher and clubs with greater football revenues, but it does mean that A) there is at least a cap which will mean clubs can operate with some level of certainty and knowledge that all other teams have to work within the same rules, B) greater assurance that clubs won't go under and C) a more level playing field.

I'm sick and tired of these oligarch's toy clubs (Chelsea, Man City, PSG, Anzi, Malaga, etc). Let teams build success through hard work and intelligent development, not just dump in £500m of transfers over a year or two from somebody's backpocket - inflating wages and creating unfair competitive advantages.

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True, but then Man city have just sponsored themselves to the tune of £400m.

Makes a mockery of the whole thing.

Exactly. Any cap would have to be a defined value. But even then there are so many crooks involved in football, administering the game and running fiefdom clubs that any regulatory intention is pretty much meaningless

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Originally Posted by Jam Persie

A salary cap is simple, in principle. Say the rules are set that player wages can be no more than 75% of club earnings. Teams must have minimum number of players. That doesn't mean you can't pay one or more players very high amounts, and these amounts would naturally be higher and clubs with greater football revenues, but it does mean that A) there is at least a cap which will mean clubs can operate with some level of certainty and knowledge that all other teams have to work within the same rules, B) greater assurance that clubs won't go under and C) a more level playing field.

I'm sick and tired of these oligarch's toy clubs (Chelsea, Man City, PSG, Anzi, Malaga, etc). Let teams build success through hard work and intelligent development, not just dump in £500m of transfers over a year or two from somebody's backpocket - inflating wages and creating unfair competitive advantages.

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But that would also mean players not wanting to go to a club which makes less earnings, like Wigan, Swansea etc. They do not have the brand value that a Utd, Liverpool, Madrid have and they will not be reaching that level unless they have a sustained period of success. Which brings us back to square one really!

Like Dennis mentioned, you can have salary caps like NBA but then it'll depend on which teams give out better bonuses or are likely to win the championship, like the Lakers, Heat, Dallas etc

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Originally Posted by GB.

Exactly. Any cap would have to be a defined value. But even then there are so many crooks involved in football, administering the game and running fiefdom clubs that any regulatory intention is pretty much meaningless

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Yeah - they'd probably increase their pay by putting money in Swiss bank accounts for them. ;)

adegoat27, etc.

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Originally Posted by fakeyank

But that would also mean players not wanting to go to a club which makes less earnings, like Wigan, Swansea etc. They do not have the brand value that a Utd, Liverpool, Madrid have and they will not be reaching that level unless they have a sustained period of success. Which brings us back to square one really!

Like Dennis mentioned, you can have salary caps like NBA but then it'll depend on which teams give out better bonuses or are likely to win the championship, like the Lakers, Heat, Dallas etc

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Of course the better players will want to play for the top clubs, not only for brand strength and bigger stage but also increased pay. Unless you make the salary cap so low that it plays to the lowest common denominator. That would be a bit too far.

There are a number of ways to effect regulation and not all very simple. If there were actually a will to make it work than it would work. There are certainly areas to look at which could be manipulated. I suspect UEFA doesn't have the balls to tell Man City they can't effectively sponsor themselves to increase their revenues in order to maintain their unfair economic advantages. But you could make a salary cap based on anything really - 100% of gate fees, 75% of gate fees/25% sponsorship, average of attendance over 3 years X avg league ticket prices, etc.

There will always be clubs who try to break the rules. Those used to 'travelling by petrol' won't be keen on walking. But that's where majority buy-in and UEFA establishing a proper regulatory regime would help.

FY, your point makes sense the way football clubs operate and how the League is governed. North American sport is somewhat different because where there are caps they are based on League revenues. A key feature of the caps that doesn't get appreciated here is that in addition to there being a ceiling to the cap, there also is a floor. Teams cannot pay less than the minimum (floor) of the cap.

These controls are only good however if you don't have viable competing Leagues, and the owners of the Clubs, particularly those funded by oligarchs/oil barons would never go for it.

I 100% agree with OP.
Salary cap fixes one of the biggest problems.... although I would prefer for financial fair play to just be enforced better (as I would worry with a cap the players would slowly get a less and less fair share).
I see a lot of issues that Wenger (and respectively Arsenal) suffer in the transfer market (that we don't get to see) revolve around salary since the big spenders have totally skewed the market in that respect.

talking of fixing football

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17220640