Quote Originally Posted by Fist of Lehmann View Post
Not sure what are you talking about. I mean "normalised" as in the disparity between highest and lowest is smaller than usual.

And I mean "distorted" as in changing the naturally occurring shape of the wage market, (i.e the gradient you get when you plot player wage vs player quality).

Trying to portray City or Chelsea as just another layer on top of the food chain is ignoring the fact that they do not have to observe any kind of prudence or operate under the same business rules as anyone else, due to the sheer scale of their wealth. City could buy van Persie, dip him in platinum and drop him off a pier, just to remove him from a rival* team. It wouldn't make the slightest dent in their wealth.

Spending money to most clubs is a risk because it is a finite resource, when you effectively remove the limits you remove the risk. Where is the sport in that?

*Rival in that we took points off them, not rival for the league obv.
There is no natural occurring shape of the wage market. That's determined by whose willing to pay what and the richest clubs set the bar. Real Madrid set the bar a long time ago during their 'Galactico' phase. From then on it got silly and the gap between the rich clubs and poor widened. City and Chelsea are a symptom of the problem. There is no way for the smaller clubs to compete with the elites because the bigger clubs have always been able to poach their players and set wage fees and transfers way above what they can afford. Where is the sport in that? The system has been unfair for years but we're more vocal now because it feels like we're in a hopeless situation where we can't compete.