- The wage cap will be calculated based on the TV money being paid out to the 20th-placed team
- Exact amount to be a multiple of this TV money amount
- Example: 20th-placed Norwich were paid £100.6m in TV money for the 2021-22 season
- The wage cap can be 4x that amount i.e. £402.4m
- The highest wage bill that season was Manchester United's £384m
- This will be introduced alongside the overall spending cap (wages + transfers) that will be based on % overall revenue (similar to UEFA's policy).
- The PL, however, will establish a higher percentage than UEFA.
- No immediate sign of the PL agreeing over how much money they will send down to the EFL.
PL Clubs Consider a Wage Cap in the League
- Thread starter mazhar13
- Start date
Good idea in theory but clubs will find ways round it. A famous rugby league players wife earnt the same amount as him running the tuck shop.
I do t get it. So using that example the wage cap would have already been followed?
Yup, Man City’s lawyers will be rubbing their hands at this. New rules = new opportunities to gain an unfair advantage over the mugs who follow the rules, knowing the authorities will do feck all about it.
This is still significant amount for total wage bill (£400M), top clubs can still afford to pay over the odds wages, in my humble opinion, the wage cap and the FFP controls should be integrated in a way to bring the total wage bill down significantly regardless of tv money size, this way it will also force top clubs not to hoard players because they can pay the most
If City aren’t even declaring what they’re paying out, a salary cap is hardly going to reign them in.
Ironic that this would affect every club other than City who would just have to increase their under the table payments to compensate.
Right. That's kind of a weak example from the article, but if the wage cap was set to 3.25x, for example, then United would have exceeded that wage cap. It all depends on the sort of calculation that the PL wants to use with the TV money being paid to the lowest-placed team.
All this will do is transfer wealth from the players to the billionaire owners.
The "inflation" in the sport is simply a function of the increased money coming in from growing TV / streaming rights, sponsorships, etc.
The "inflation" in the sport is simply a function of the increased money coming in from growing TV / streaming rights, sponsorships, etc.
Based on those figures it'd basically be a pointless change that does nothing but makes it seem like those in charge care.
It's a start, but I'd rather see these proposed limits on wages vs lowest club's tv income extended to also include transfer spending, then for these rules to replace the protectionist equivalent regulations for wages/transfers based upon club by club revenues.
These rules have to always be more lenient than UEFA's however, otherwise it will lead to a competitive disadvantage for our country.
These rules have to always be more lenient than UEFA's however, otherwise it will lead to a competitive disadvantage for our country.
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It's a good idea but the devil is in the details and you obviously have to be committed to monitoring and enforcing the rules through severe sanctions.
Rule enforcement is not particularly hard in the abstract, it's all about having the will to actually do it (which there probably isn't).
The best thing for football would probably be a system in which you set a wage/player costs cap low enough so that the top 5-7 clubs were all essentially on equal footing but high enough so that those clubs could compete with just about any side in the world (Real Madrid, Bayern, etc) for top players. Do that and put into place an effective system for enforcing the rules (which again really isn't hard, its just about willingness to do it) and you have the basis for a great league.
Rule enforcement is not particularly hard in the abstract, it's all about having the will to actually do it (which there probably isn't).
The best thing for football would probably be a system in which you set a wage/player costs cap low enough so that the top 5-7 clubs were all essentially on equal footing but high enough so that those clubs could compete with just about any side in the world (Real Madrid, Bayern, etc) for top players. Do that and put into place an effective system for enforcing the rules (which again really isn't hard, its just about willingness to do it) and you have the basis for a great league.
If teams arent punished for not meeting the cap, is there actually any point though?
I think footballers get paid far too much, but anything not spent on wages will end up going to owners. I feel it would probably encourage more people like the Glazers into football if there’s a big reduction in costs to revenue. That or there will be some other grim unintended consequences.
I’d like to see the idea fleshed out more before I support it.
I’d like to see the idea fleshed out more before I support it.
My biggest issue with a wage cap is that the money “saved” on wages is unlikely to ever translate into any sort of discounted anything for the fans, which means that the owners end up with more money. I would not say that the Glazers deserve more of the club’s money than Bruno
Correct. Despite plonkers in the Sale thread claiming no one buys clubs to make money out of them the list of owners says plenty do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_owners_of_English_football_clubs
Surely when a player is in contract talks with a new club or their current club, they can just demand a huge signing bonus to make up for their wages being capped?
As an aside does anybody else find it disgusting that we seem happy to regulate grotesque wealth and inequality in football, but take a lassez faire approach to the things that actually matter, like financial equality and fair play in society as a whole, surely it should be the other way around.
Cue creative accounting by the big clubs.
I just can’t understand why all the best players are still signing for Man City after creating a shell company in Panama. It just doesn’t make any sense.
Exactly. Isn't it a bit suspicious that it's the clubs (read: the billionaire owners) who are coming up with this proposal?
I am all for finding ways to create a more even playing field in football, but a wage cap is not the way. The last people who deserve more money out of football are the owners.
Somewhat this.
Something is still broken here when players routinely see out their contracts and get big pay days for doing just that. It's at the point that where it used to be non existent to the english captain doing just that and clubs like Chelsea finding ways around this by giving out 8 year contracts.
The balance of power has shifted too far, so some normalization might not be bad.
It's not happening, the top players will just move to a league that has no cap
a man a plan a canal 115 financial irregularities
What are you doing here? A die hard City fan should be taking part in their parade.
i couldn’t find it in the end. didn’t help that i spent 45 minutes hanging around oddbins, thinking the 4 guys standing outside it was the crowd. should have known we’d never pull in those kinds of numbers.
Any regulations that are based on % of revenue should be resisted with extreme prejudice.
Should be a flat amount for all clubs.
Should be a flat amount for all clubs.
It's pointless imo, there will be loopholes such as bonuses, bonus for getting out of bed 10k, bonus for turning up to training 10k. And of course city will have a third party that suddenly becomes the official bitcoin sponsor of every player they sign where they get an extra 100k a week.
Exactly. How the bloody hell do these geniuses think this will stop City?
They've got 115 charges going a decade back they are struggling to touch them over.
They've achieved their objective, there's no need to carry on as before
Price of freddos are ridiculous these days
There’s no stopping oil clubs paying money in off shore accounts that the EPL don’t have a sniff of either finding out about or investigating.
Doesn’t even have to be the recognised owners. A random Qatar company could pay any millions ala Saudi Clubs to represent Qatar in some capacity and have it legally separate from the club.
For all the talk about market rates there are now market rates for these sort of deals.
I stopped reading after ‘the highest spenders that season were Man United’
And yet we use the same amount on salaries and end up with Martial and Sancho , they end up with Bruyne and Haaland. Stop whining at City and protest our shitty running of the club instead
Even if these loopholes didn't exist, once enough clubs are state-owned, there wouldn't be any way for the governing authorities to figure out "fair market rates" because they'd all be playing the same game and there would be no actual price discovery.
Nothing like good enough to have any kind of genuine impact.
A salary cap would be a good thing. But only if it was aimed at doing something. It’s outcome focused, not solution focused.
The cap should never limit the earning potential of players. They are the the product and a cap that allows clubs to take more money from them.
We have to work on ways to equalise the leagues earnings. Bigger ideas are needed. We could (and should) apply different rules to different clubs.
The sides competing in Europe should have smaller squad sizes or fewer substitutes. Allowing them to use the same rules as smaller clubs is too much of an advantage now. City have completed a treble with relative ease. Every single player was near their best at the end of the season
I think clubs in Europe could have incentivising metrics in place;
- 3 subs instead of 5
- With an additional 2 subs if those additionals are under 21
OR
Those clubs have 20 man squads instead of 25, with the 21st to 25th members being allowed if they’re under 21.
PL to PL loans need to be abolished too.
We’re creating more talented English players than ever, and so many are not getting enough minutes. We’re generating more money than ever, and it’s just making its way into an increasingly small number of clubs.
Individual Salaries Are not the problem. At all.
A salary cap would be a good thing. But only if it was aimed at doing something. It’s outcome focused, not solution focused.
The cap should never limit the earning potential of players. They are the the product and a cap that allows clubs to take more money from them.
We have to work on ways to equalise the leagues earnings. Bigger ideas are needed. We could (and should) apply different rules to different clubs.
The sides competing in Europe should have smaller squad sizes or fewer substitutes. Allowing them to use the same rules as smaller clubs is too much of an advantage now. City have completed a treble with relative ease. Every single player was near their best at the end of the season
I think clubs in Europe could have incentivising metrics in place;
- 3 subs instead of 5
- With an additional 2 subs if those additionals are under 21
OR
Those clubs have 20 man squads instead of 25, with the 21st to 25th members being allowed if they’re under 21.
PL to PL loans need to be abolished too.
We’re creating more talented English players than ever, and so many are not getting enough minutes. We’re generating more money than ever, and it’s just making its way into an increasingly small number of clubs.
Individual Salaries Are not the problem. At all.
That's not specific to oil clubs, any of them could be doing it
It’s adorable that you believe that City are transparent and honest about how much they spend
But most owners would then have to create shell companies etc? It’s not as if Glazers can get Mbappe sponsored by the Buccaneers.
Meanwhile an actual country can simply use a legitimate company / brand from their country that don’t disclose their finances and funnel the money that way.
We do see a bit of it when a big star takes the next step and suddenly gets sponsored by Adidas etc but that wouldn’t be on the same level