[Football] Proposed salary cap for Leagues One & Two

[Lady Whistledown]

The Football League are proposing the introduction of a salary cap for Leagues One & Two, of £2.5m and £1.25m respectively.

Which self-appointed Big Club do you think have been the most vocal in opposing this so far? Why, it's our old chums from across the border to the west, who had a wage bill of £4m last year

This from the Pompey CEO (not the Mickey Mouse bloke): "Should salary caps come in, those clubs with a 40,000 average attendance and generating huge commercial revenues will be only allowed to spend the same as clubs with a 2,000 attendance and no commercial income. How can that be right?".

Well it certainly CAN be right, Mark: aside from the fact that I must have missed which League One clubs are currently averaging over 40,000 per game, anything that helps keep PFC on a level with Accrington Stanley, Fleetwood and Gillingham is fine by me.

STAY THERE FOREVER!!!!

This is the Pompey fans' view. They seem to be under the impression that living in Portsmouth attracts a massive premium https://fansonline.net/portsmouth/mb/view.php?id=803071


Oh, I will never, ever get bored of them being down there.

 

[Chicken Run]

The Football League are proposing the introduction of a salary cap for Leagues One & Two, of £2.5m and £1.25m respectively.

Which self-appointed Big Club do you think have been the most vocal in opposing this so far? Why, it's our old chums from across the border to the west, who had a wage bill of £4m last year

This from the Pompey CEO (not the Mickey Mouse bloke): "Should salary caps come in, those clubs with a 40,000 average attendance and generating huge commercial revenues will be only allowed to spend the same as clubs with a 2,000 attendance and no commercial income. How can that be right?".

Well it certainly CAN be right, Mark: aside from the fact that I must have missed which League One clubs are currently averaging over 40,000 per game, anything that helps keep PFC on a level with Accrington Stanley, Fleetwood and Gillingham is fine by me.

STAY THERE FOREVER!!!!

This is the Pompey fans' view. They seem to be under the impression that living in Portsmouth attracts a massive premium https://fansonline.net/portsmouth/mb/view.php?id=803071
I will never, ever get bored of them being down there.

As always I entirely agree with and stand with you in my disgust for that horrible excuse for a football club.

 

[GT49er]

The Football League are proposing the introduction of a salary cap for Leagues One & Two, of £2.5m and £1.25m respectively.

I don't know how much the average League 2 player earns, but doesn't £1.25M for the season seem rather low? - evenly spread out over a squad of 25 that equates to £1000 a week each.

 

[Lady Whistledown]

As always I entirely agree with and stand with you in my disgust for that horrible excuse for a football club.

There's another thread on that board where somebody suggests appointing Chris Houghton (yes, Houghton), and the rest of them pile in saying they wouldn't want him at their club because his football isn't good enough.

On that:

(1) He's not looking for a job in the third division, chaps
(2) You must have missed the football played when we got promoted from the Championship (might have been due to the tears in your eyes as you got relegated the season before and lost at the Amex)
(3) You have Kenny Jackett in charge and just lost to the mighty Oxford United in the play offs. You would crawl over broken glass to have a manager of Hughton's calibre right now.

 

[Change at Barnham]

It's interesting that none of the Pompey fans see it as an opportunity to divert some of their additional income to upgrading Fratton Park rather than blowing it on inflated wages.
They don't seem to have a clue about how urgent it is to modernise their ground in the next few years if they want to have a sustainable long term future.

 

[Lady Whistledown]

I don't know how much the average League 2 player earns, but doesn't £1.25M for the season seem rather low? - evenly spread out over a squad of 25 that equates to £1000 a week each.

It does, but I guess that's still £52,000 per year, which puts them above the average salary across the country (all occupations). I think they're also talking about limiting squad sizes to 20 senior pros. Players under 21 would be excluded from the cap.

Some clubs will find a way round it with loopholes, no doubt.

 

[Eeyore]

Salary caps would have made football a far more appealing pastime and a level playing field had they been introduced many years ago. It would have kept ownership local and warded off all this absurd turmoil of leadership, buying and selling. It may have even brought more of the game to mainstream television. I fear the horse has bolted.

 

[Lady Whistledown]

It's interesting that none of the Pompey fans see it as an opportunity to divert some of their additional income to upgrading Fratton Park rather than blowing it on inflated wages.
They don't seem to have a clue about how urgent it is to modernise their ground in the next few years if they want to have a sustainable long term future.

Fortunately the new owners have been planning improvements to the Fratton Park infrastructure for some time now, and work to upgrade the Bell End is already underway.

 

[Pinkie Brown]

PFC. The deluded entitlement and twatery that keeps on giving. After their calamity at Oxford, a peep at various social media proved predictable. Jackett must be sacked, the owner must get his cheque book out, sleeping giant and the usual. The suggestions for new manager were bizarre - Redknapp, Colin, Chris Hughton. Even Jamie O'Hara. I'd be delighted for the latter to get the job should Jackett leave. After the noise they made a few years back of being a fan owned club and not a rich foreign owners toy, the first rich foreign owner that comes along with promises, they snatched his arm off. It won't end well.

 

[Gwylan]

I don't understand why people on that Pompey forum are talking about it being illegal - although none of them can suggest what law is being broken. Nor do any of them point out that the Premiership has had a salary cap for more than 20 years without anyone questioning the legality of it. The EFL is a private organisation and can set its own rules, if Pompey doesn't want to be a part of it, it can always resign and join the National League.

Some of those supporters seem to be, shall we say, slightly mentally challenged #twats

 

[dejavuatbtn]

It does, but I guess that's still £52,000 per year, which puts them above the average salary across the country (all occupations). I think they're also talking about limiting squad sizes to 20 senior pros. Players under 21 would be excluded from the cap.

Some clubs will find a way round it with loopholes, no doubt.

Ooooh, aye. Director runs a boot company and needs the office floor sweeping three times a week.

 

[BBassic]

Surely them being forced to reign in their spending, whilst reaping the benefits of their (presumably) always sold out ground and massive commercial incomes, would leave them in a good position no? As opposed to nearly spending themselves into oblivion (again) ?

 

[Pinkie Brown]

I don't know how much the average League 2 player earns, but doesn't £1.25M for the season seem rather low? - evenly spread out over a squad of 25 that equates to £1000 a week each.

I can't imagine many League 2 clubs having a 25 man squad of full professionals tbh.

 

[Eeyore]

It does, but I guess that's still £52,000 per year, which puts them above the average salary across the country (all occupations). I think they're also talking about limiting squad sizes to 20 senior pros. Players under 21 would be excluded from the cap.

Some clubs will find a way round it with loopholes, no doubt.

It's mostly worked in rugby. It's how Exeter, under outstanding leadership, found their way to the title and the latter stages of European competition.

Saracens were breaking it for years and dominating. We all knew there was no way they could bring so much talent in without breaking the rules. English rugby was suffering for it.

Then came the reckoning and next year they will be playing in the second flight.

Football would have been so much more exciting if this had been done a long time ago. It's too late now.

 

[Swansman]

Great and absolutely necessary. Sure the "free market" idiots will need to go on suicide watch but they've always lived in Narnia, in the real world shit spiral out of control if you dont regulate things.

Only issue I see is for Championship clubs getting relegated. They will need to get rid of their best paid players and with clubs aware of their situation they might have difficulties to get a fair fee for those players. Probably would need to be solved with some "parachute salary cap increase" or something.

 

[GT49er]

It does, but I guess that's still £52,000 per year, which puts them above the average salary across the country (all occupations). I think they're also talking about limiting squad sizes to 20 senior pros. Players under 21 would be excluded from the cap.

Some clubs will find a way round it with loopholes, no doubt.

True - I (and I suspect many of my fellow NSCers) would be over the moon to get £52,000 a year. I was thinking of it more in terms of the surreal world of footballers' wages rather than the real world!

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

Should be based on declared turnover from previous year plus allowance for relegation/promotion and a percentage figure for investment.

While we all would like each club to be independent it will not be long before there's a need for feeder clubs. That can easily be regulated such that it gives stability without being seen as unfair. Ceiling on investment and dual registration.

 

[portslade seagull]

Should be based on declared turnover from previous year plus allowance for relegation/promotion and a percentage figure for investment.

While we all would like each club to be independent it will not be long before there's a need for feeder clubs. That can easily be regulated such that it gives stability without being seen as unfair. Ceiling on investment and dual registration.

Agree with this, surely has to be set against the individual turnover of each club only allowing them to spend an agreed % on wages

 

[Lady Whistledown]

Be interesting to see what the deal is for clubs relegated from the Championship. While I'm sure they must have had some sort of relegation contingency built in, Alex Pritchard (for example) was on at least £20k/wk in Huddersfield's previous PL season, and at least three or four others on £25k/wk. Two of those players would use up the entire budget for a L1 side.

I can't imagine a club like Stoke would easily get themselves down to £2.5m either. Or Hull, no matter how badly they've cut their squads.

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

I don't understand why this is needed or should be done. Forces relegated clubs to ditch players they can otherwise afford, creates a bigger gulf with the championship (and between leagues 1 and 2) will encourage more loans and third party ownerships, will mean that clubs generating lots of income, like Sunderland and pompey, will pay the directors more and the players less.

Why is there even a difference between leagues 1 and 2? What's the rationale? Teams shuffle between those divisions all the time, but now any decent player in L2 will jump to L1 for the extra money. Its creating divides where they are not needed.

Everyone goes after footballers salaries, always. But they are the ones who do the job and generate the revenues in football, they should be rewarded. Few industries pay big wages to the staff on the shopfloor, even though they often deserve it, but football is one that bucks that trend.

There are other ways to avoid insolvencies than just salary caps. If an entrepreneur wants to borrow money and put the club at risk in the pursuit of glory, there are many other avenues available. Agent fees, signing on fees, transfer fees, loan fees, money can be thrown around all over the place. And as Saracens showed us, there are many ways to get round salary caps.

My idea is a total spending cap that applies equally to every single club in the country, that cap being equal to your income - not loans, just income - from any and all sources.