[Football] Wage Capping

[Tim Over Whelmed]

The majority of Bury fans and other callers on BBC 5 Live last night and this morning were calling for wage capping in the EFL and football generally. There are many reasons why this wouldn't work, namely because Pogba & Co would be off to La Liga, China etc sharpish and the TV deal would collapse! The Premier League have a great deal with the TV deal but it has come at a cost to lower league football.

But, thinking about it further it wouldn't work anyway. Imagine if in the EFL Championship the cap was limited to a club's revenue, then the clubs with large fan bases i.e. Leeds, Massive etc would have a huge advantage over the rest of the league, similarly what's to stop some guy from Qatar or somewhere else paying say £30m for stadium naming rights and that be added to revenue as a way of bolstering the income?

Even if they found a fair system and said, for example, the cap is £500,000 a year then clubs could "incentivise" the better players to come to the club by creating agreements, outside of the club, with sponsorship and PR events, i.e. Mercedes pay you another £100,000 a year to drive their latest car?

What's the answer to clubs spending more than they earn? Should a club be able to do this if it has a generous benefactor, after-all we have. Maybe it's the structure of the loans?

 

[Tokyohands]

I was thinking a bit earlier something's gone very wrong when there's Sanchez on 400k a week for bog all and yet Bury can't put thruppence and ha'penny together. It just seems such a waste and it's quite obscene the way Premier clubs are throwing millions around without a second thought.

 

[happypig]

1. 5% transfer levy. money goes into a fund to help struggling clubs (interest free loans etc).
2. Any sale of shares over a certain % (say 5%) to be approved by the league.
3. "Ring fence" club finances and prohibit loading debt onto sports clubs (ie taking out a mortgage or loan to finance other businesses. So you can borrow money to build a new stand but you cannot use it to build a block of flats.

 

[amexer]

Whilst uncomfortable with what Premier league players earn the problem isnt there. None lose money and games attract TV audience of 100m round world. The championship is another story but think people would be surprised at what some players are earning in Div 1 and 2. Maybe this can be justified at clubs with big following like Portsmouth but so many have gates of 1/3000. How on these gates can full time players be justified. I would bring in a salary cap to all lower league clubs based on there income. I am amazed how so many survive with small gates and 3/4 clubs within 10 miles. Apart from 2500 x £15 entrance can anybody inform me apart from a little sponsorship how these clubs make up there income apart from praying they draw a big club in cup.
I recognise clubs will always dream but reality should be faced. Take for example how there are so many full time clubs in National league on even smaller gates

 

[wellquickwoody]

As [MENTION=13947]happypig[/MENTION] has said, some kind of fund to be used in extreme circumstances. Could be a 1% levy on all Prem team wage bills, could pay for a business management team to be put into place when clubs are about to be declared bankrupt/insolvent, with owners signing up to this as part of league membership rules? The club then kept running until new owners/a new business plan can be found. It would obviously have implications that would entail players agreeing to a ‘minimum wage’ until issues are solved or they get a transfer. Just a thought......

 

[stewart12]

it does work in other leagues- for example MLS where each club gets a salary limit for the whole squad (and then can have designated players outside of that limit)

but as you say, it would lead to every 'big name player' leaving england as foreign clubs would start throwing around huge wages to lure them there. The PL would then cease to be the "biggest league in the whole wide world", lose most of it's foreign tv deals and the whole thing would turn to shit

which is why english football would never go down that route, rightly or wrongly

 

[Springal]

Each EFL club owner has to put in £500k of their own money which then goes into a central pot to be used for emergency funding to pay for players, staff, essential bills. If a club has to use that money then the current owner loses their £500k bond and MUST sell the club for the price they purchased it for. In Bury case, £1. If an owner sells, the books are inspected and if compliant they get their bond back or if not they lose it. New owner comes in and pays the bond.

Clubs get a dividend out of the pot every year if they are FFP compliant and running properly.

 

[theboybilly]

1. 5% transfer levy. money goes into a fund to help struggling clubs (interest free loans etc).
2. Any sale of shares over a certain % (say 5%) to be approved by the league.
3. "Ring fence" club finances and prohibit loading debt onto sports clubs (ie taking out a mortgage or loan to finance other businesses. So you can borrow money to build a new stand but you cannot use it to build a block of flats.

More sense in this post than I've heard from any 'pundit' or the EFL in the last few weeks.

 

[Ernest]

Why not simply make a rule if your income is £1million a season you cannot spend anymore

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

Why not simply make a rule if your income is £1million a season you cannot spend anymore

Quite, whilst no one is happy about the plight of Bury- I’m not sure many fans questioned the wages being thrown about they couldn’t afford.

The whole idea of there being a backup fund will just encourage more reckless spending.

 

[DerekZoolander]

There are many reasons why this wouldn't work, namely because Pogba & Co would be off to La Liga, China etc sharpish and the TV deal would collapse!

I kind of agree with the point. But as far as I'm concerned Pogba etc can go and **** themselves if they're worried about ONLY being paid 500k a year, for example.

I'd much rather see clubs like Bury, Bolton, Coventry survive, than watch Pogba flounce around the pitch with his brand new haircut thinking he's better than everyone.

 

[drew]

Each EFL club owner has to put in £500k of their own money which then goes into a central pot to be used for emergency funding to pay for players, staff, essential bills. If a club has to use that money then the current owner loses their £500k bond and MUST sell the club for the price they purchased it for. In Bury case, £1. If an owner sells, the books are inspected and if compliant they get their bond back or if not they lose it. New owner comes in and pays the bond.

Clubs get a dividend out of the pot every year if they are FFP compliant and running properly.

The trouble with this and other ideas is that most owners probably don't have that money to hand! There isn't a queue of people to buy businesses that are losing money, especially those in areas where they aren't the biggest draw!

 

[Springal]

The trouble with this and other ideas is that most owners probably don't have that money to hand! There isn't a queue of people to buy businesses that are losing money, especially those in areas where they aren't the biggest draw!

Maybe step it down, £1M in Championship, £500k League One, £250k League Two. But really if you are buying a football club and don't have that kind of money then should you be buying it?

 

[GT49er]

A wage cap would be an excellent thing to have, but is untenable, unfortunately. A player would do a 'Bosman' and take their case to the European Court of Human Rights or wherever and get it overturned as 'unfair'.

 

[Kaiser_Soze]

Everyone is focusing on the financial disparity between PL and EFL which is of course relevant but that still doesn't account for the fact that the EFL routinely allow people to buy clubs that shouldn't be allowed to own them.

Dale had over 30 liquidated businesses and never produced proof of funds. The Nottm Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis was charged with match fixing and corruption, as well as being suspected drug trafficking. People like this simply should not be able to buy football clubs. The Fit and Proper Persons Test is utter rubbish.

The other issue is sadly, small clubs like Bury in the catchment area of PL clubs are being swamped. More fans are watching PL football from home and youngsters are growing up following players rather than clubs. We're lucky that our move to the Amex and rise to the PL happened when it did.

 

[smartferndale]

Perhaps as supporters it is better to have a club in Division 2 than no club at all. We nearly went out of existence add Orient, Portsmouth, Coventry. ......Survival seems the key thing rather than promotion and over extending. Look at the post last week at wages of non league players it is unsustainable. Players as well as agents and owners to to face up to the fact that wages are or have to be a lot lower in the lower divisions. A Manchester City under 23 will be on a high salary and cannot expect anything like it in a lower division.
Bolton will get some hammerings this season with young players but hopefully they will improve and be ready to push for promotion next season, pretty much certs to go down if they continue. How can Macclesfield Town survive?

 

[Greg Bobkin]

The horse has long bolted to start talking about salary caps, funds for lower leagues or other forms of levelling the playing field. The gulf between divisions continues to grow – even the gulf between different groups of teams in the PL is going in the wrong direction, IMO – and I can't honestly see a way back. There are likely to be clubs going out of business, which is a shame.

The football industry is crazy. Such vast sums of money involved there are bound to be issues further down the line...

 

[Kuipers Supporters Club]

Agree ...

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/jul/09/uefa-ceferin-smaller-leagues-talk-wage-cap

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

A wage cap would be an excellent thing to have, but is untenable, unfortunately. A player would do a 'Bosman' and take their case to the European Court of Human Rights or wherever and get it overturned as 'unfair'.

I guess the way around it is to write it into the league rules.

It would take the clubs to stick together.

 

[GT49er]

I guess the way around it is to write it into the league rules.

It would take the clubs to stick together.

It would still get overturned - restraint of trade, probably.