Salary Cap

[Noster]

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/12213386/efl-salary-cap-for-league-one-and-league-two-withdrawn-following-arbitration-panel-verdict

[Awaywego]

Good news at least we can’t be docked points for overspending.

[Ferrite]

Terrible news for the lower leagues and ultimately bad news for players.

[TwoWrights]

I’m of the opinion it’s a good thing this cap is no more.

[Northumbiron]

Gets rid of the ridiculous £2.5m/£1.5m discrepancy between Leagues 1 & 2.

Hopefully something a bit more sensible will replace it.

[Ferrite]

TwoWrights wrote:

I’m of the opinion it’s a good thing this cap is no more.

Why so?

[TwoWrights]

Clubs will just find a way around it*, and I see no reason why clubs like Sunderland or Charlton, with large fan bases, should be forced to pay relative peanuts (in football terms) and be limited in the transfer market.

FFP has worked well with Messi’s half a billion quid contract, or not.

[Ferrite]

FFP is deeply flawed and still allows for clubs like Man City to have their dubious financial models. But a salary cap which helps to promote stability and competition across the leagues is surely a good thing, no?

I don’t really see why clubs with bigger fan bases should be allowed to spend more money, to be honest. If you’ve got that extra money, cut ticket prices, build the best training ground you can, make your academy as good as any Premier League club, invest in the community, don’t just pee it all away on players who’ll be up the road as soon as they get a better offer.

You’re probably right about clubs finding a way around it though, given how bad the EFL is at drafting and then applying its rules. We’ve seen similar things happen in rugger too, I believe. But I don’t think that’s enough of a reason not to try to improve things because without it the race to the bottom will surely continue and, in the long term, I can see the PFA having to pay a lot more of its members’ wages as other clubs follow the example of Bury or Macclesfield.

[mistertonmick]

in my opinion if the owners have the money to spend let them spend it, no need for dubious models Ferrite, City have wealthy owners, but it is clubs debts that are the issues, and often keep clubs in the FFP which is a farce, also some clubs get loans to get around it, to me it should be the owners responsibility the debts, also it would be interesting at all clubs if transfers had to be paid in full instead of instalments.

[Northumbiron]

Shouldn’t the salary cap be on individual players rather than the squad?

[Ferrite]

Well, a few things there Mick. One, look into where the money of Man City’s owners comes from. Why are they spending it on City? Could/should they be spending it at home? How would you feel if your government was spending billions on a football club in a different country just to bolster its reputation?

Secondly, every pound that Abu Dhabi spend at City forces prices up. Their pockets are essentially bottomless, so if they want to out-bid any other club for a player, they can do. You might think that selling clubs make more money and that’s a good thing but ultimately it just means it becomes like an arms race, with everyone having to spend more money to keep up. Especially when you consider that wages account for far more spending than transfer fees these days.

Thirdly, how many more clubs do we have to see go to the wall or get into unmanageable debt before we question the way football is run in this country? How many times have the PFA had to step in and pay players’ wages? Even big, storied clubs like Sheffield Wednesday & Derby are in deep financial trouble. These aren’t like Rushden or Macclesfield, who maybe rose too far, these are clubs which would normally get 30,000 fans at home and they still can’t make things work. Surely that means the system is broken?

[Awaywego]

Scunthorpe must have been close to going over the rules over the previous seasons, where there a rule it will be broken, so am glad we won’t get a point deduction for over spending (if we did) now it is scrapped.

[mistertonmick]

Ferrite the City owners are not their countries government, lots of other clubs have rich owners, you are talking like a Man U or a Liverpool fan who moans that their owners don’t dip their hands in their pockets enough, like United are supposed to be the richest club, yet they have the highest debt because of their owners and like a couple of other big clubs had to take a big loan out in the summer to either compete in the transfer market or to pay debts or players.

[Deereyme66]

Good discussion on the subject. Not sure either way tbh. I can see pros and cons to keeping and to getting rid. I don’t think simply doing either is the solution.

[Awaywego]

Man u have the highest debt because the Glaziers borrowed the money to purchase all the shares, just the same as Tata did when buying corus, everyone was forced to sell their shares both were listed on the Ftse, the only difference is that the Glaziers could relist the shares and make a huge profit and Man u would then have no debt. But no one would have wanted Tata shares,well at least not in construction steel.

[Ferrite]

Mick, I would recommend you read a bit about where City’s owners got their money from.

“City Football Group owned by Abu Dhabi United Group, an investment vehicle owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the brother of the ruler of the United Arab Emirates.” – NY Times

That group is linked to the Abu Dhabi soverign wealth fund, which basically is where much of the country’s oil revenue goes.

Similar things at Chelsea – where did Abramovic’s money come from?

And Man United’s owners put the club deep into debt with their takeover – the club’s still paying for that takeover. A similar method was used in Burnley’s recent takeover.

[mistertonmick]

we know he is Royalty, but it has nothing to do with the running of his country, you are picking on City but all big clubs are similar with foreign owners, nearly all Champions League clubs of any country have now got massive backing, one of the biggest problems in Sport is the ridiculous wages, and regarding the Man United owners they bought the club with loans and seeing how many years they have owned the club they look like they will never own it debt free, they got another massive loan this last summer, City I believe are debt free and with getting money from Oil is a business not a fraud, I am sure most Man U fans would have had the City owners running their club instead of the Glazers.

[Ferrite]

I agree with many of your points Mick but do you really think it’s ok that a country with almost bottomless pockets can just buy a club and hoover up trophies?

mistertonmick wrote:

we know he is Royalty, but it has nothing to do with the running of his country

Why do you say that? The ruler of the country is the brother of the person named as the owner of City.

Barcelona & Real Madrid, for all their faults, are member-run clubs. Their fans vote for their presidents. Bayern are majority fan-owned, even if like most other massive clubs they have some dubious sponsorship. I don’t get how you can say City are “debt free” when Abu Dhabi can just write them a cheque for “sponsorship”. Etihad is owned by the government of Abu Dhabi. It’s not like being sponsored by Brother printers anymore!

But I agree with you that there’s too much money in the game – unfortunately, one of the reasons for that is that we just allow anyone to buy our clubs and spend as much money as they like. That pushes up prices for everyone.

[mistertonmick]

So you are saying that Man City shouldn’t have a foreign owner, but its OK for Man U, Liverpool, Sheffield United, Chelsea, Burnley, Leicester, Everton, Villa and the other clubs with foreign owners to have one, and don’t forget it’s not so long ago that the Saudi King wanted to buy United but the Glazers were probably getting big handouts by the sounds of it and probably the club paying their installments to the Bank, you are not Max Bell by any chance he doesn’t like City, and by the way I don’t support City but like watching them play.

[Ferrite]

It’s not a foreign owner Mick, it’s the endless wealth that’s the issue. Christ, there are plenty of dodgy owners, regardless of nationality in English football!

I’m not Max Bell either and this has nothing to do with petty club rivalries, it’s bigger than that.

On another note, I don’t enjoy watching City, I find them a bit sterile. They’re brilliant at what they do, I just can’t warm to them.

[mistertonmick]

So if it had have been Man United or Liverpool who had unlimited wealth you would be saying the same thing, or not.

[Iron-awe]

Salary cap was a way of trying to ensure clubs survive this desperate position the game and the world finds itself in. Hard to get clubs to stick to it and in an ideal world we don’t want it, the facts that the club’s themselves don’t want it speaks volumes about how they feel the game should be run. I still think some clubs will fold and I believe long term the game won’t want salary caps as a solution to the games problems, it’s the way our football system works and overall bigger clubs, who ultimately have the final say whether we like it or not, will get there own way. As for Man City being ” sterile “, hey it’s all about opinions and in my opinion Man City are a sensational side to watch, I absolutely love watching them play, as for 16 consecutive wins, cracking attacking play, massive goal difference and points clear at the top of our football pyramid with a game in hand on most of their challengers, well that speaks volumes to me about how good and IMO how entertaining they are.

[Ferrite]

mistertonmick wrote:

So if it had have been Man United or Liverpool who had unlimited wealth you would be saying the same thing, or not.

Of course I would. It is possible to have an opinion about football without caring about one specific club. I dislike ALL of the big clubs, I find it hillarious when any of them lose. I think they’re slowly destroying the game and they don’t given even a quarter of a damn about any of us.

Iron-awe wrote:

ey it’s all about opinions and in my opinion Man City are a sensational side to watch, I absolutely love watching them play, as for 16 consecutive wins, cracking attacking play, massive goal difference and points clear at the top of our football pyramid with a game in hand on most of their challengers, well that speaks volumes to me about how good and IMO how entertaining they are.

You’re right, they really should be enjoyable to watch and I must admit that what I saw of them against Spurs yesterday had some real flashes. But there’s something about City which I just find cold, emotionless, almost robotic. Maybe it’s because they’re so good, particularly at present, that they’re almost completely flawless and that’s just weird! Maybe it’s because their style of play is so well drilled, so machine-like, that there almost doesn’t seem to be room for any free spirits in the side. But that’s just personal prejudice!

[Northumbiron]

Ferrite wrote:

Maybe it’s because they’re so good, particularly at present, that they’re almost completely flawless

They’re shit at taking penalties mind!

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Ferrite

[mistertonmick]

Ferrite said “But that’s just personal prejudice!”

So you don’t like a club breaking into the dominance of the so called top few, I like the emergence of City, Chelsea and Leicester and long may it continue same with PSG, never been a fan of United especially since Sky tried to take them over and wanted to make them invincible home and abroad.

[Ferrite]

mistertonmick wrote:

So you don’t like a club breaking into the dominance of the so called top few, I like the emergence of City, Chelsea and Leicester and long may it continue same with PSG, never been a fan of United especially since Sky tried to take them over and wanted to make them invincible home and abroad.

What are you on about Mick? You’re one of the brightest posters on here but I don’t get this blind spot of yours.

Back in the 1980s, or even 1990s, when the financial gaps were nowhere near as big, you had teams like Forest, Southampton, Everton, Ipswich, Villa, Leeds, even Norwich challenging for the title and sometimes even winning it. The fact that any club hoping to challenge for the title can only do so by spending hundreds of millions of pounds is crazy!

PSG is a terrible example – they’ve destroyed the French league, winning the title and most of the cups year after year. If they were run as professionally as City, they’d have won the Champions League too by now.

I’m all for mixing things up, that’s exactly the reason why we need much better rules on the way the game is run in this country. The salary cap was a very small step in that direction.

[Anonymous]

There’s also the element that many of these bank rolled clubs are funded by questionable people and regimes. PSG, Man City and Chelsea in particular. They are used as a whitewash for their branding abroad and I am very uncomfortable with that. Go on a Chelsea or Man City forum and a large chunk of their fanbase will defend their owners from links to human rights abuses and corruption because they have given them pleasure in football.

When the Saudis were interested in Newcastle many of their fans were the same, seeing the financial opportunities from that as the sole focus. Who cares if the people involved were linked to murders of journalists or the suppression of women in their own country if they can tempt the Mbappes and Haalands to the north-east, so they can have a title shot? You even got some trying to say it shouldn’t matter because of Mike Ashley’s questionable business ethics. Ashley may be a rotter, but he is yet to stoop to state sponsored killings of dissidents and widespread abuse of women across the entire country.

Let’s also not forget that these new money backed clubs don’t have any interest in preserving the league’s integrity either. Man City were one of the big proponents of B teams in the lower leagues to suit them, I believe.

While, on the level of a competition, it’s good to see fresh teams, I cannot get behind Man City or Chelsea for these reasons. Although I am not a fan, I do like seeing Leicester up there. Their success seems more organic and it is not connected to such horrid regimes. Plus, of all the teams at the top their fans seem the most grounded and less like glory hunting. I also feel they get ignored and underrated by pundits. When Leicester played Man Utd in December Glenn Hoddle was practically commentating as a Man Utd fan, as if the whole audience will be willing them to win. So, for these reasons, I do enjoy seeing Leicester up there challenging the bigger teams and I hope more can follow their lead.

[Ferrite]

Anonymous wrote:

Their success seems more organic and it is not connected to such horrid regimes

A couple of points to look at on this, one being the way in which King Power was able to get the monopoly on duty free concessions in the country and two being the way in which the Thai royal family treats people (offence of lèse-majesté) & the number of military coups in the country in the last few decades.

Not as serious as some of the other club owners on our list but I’m not sure they’re the good guys either.

That said, it’s clear the club punches above its weight on the pitch, helped by having a really under-rated manager (although not under-rated by himself!)
.

[mistertonmick]

Isn’t that the same about any Man United match BRI, the TV companies and a papers think everyone supports them.

[Anonymous]

Ferrite wrote:

BloodyRubbishIron wrote:

Their success seems more organic and it is not connected to such horrid regimes

A couple of points to look at on this, one being the way in which King Power was able to get the monopoly on duty free concessions in the country and two being the way in which the Thai royal family treats people (offence of lèse-majesté) & the number of military coups in the country in the last few decades.

Not as serious as some of the other club owners on our list but I’m not sure they’re the good guys either.

That said, it’s clear the club punches above its weight on the pitch, helped by having a really under-rated manager (although not under-rated by himself!)
.

That’s true and I am less familiar with Thai politics than Russia, Saudi Arabia or the Gulf States like UAE or Qatar. I was aware of Thailand’s regressive monarchical powers and laws, but I was unsure over the Leicester owners proximity to it as I was with Abramovich the oligarch of Russia or the strong links to the UAE from the sheikhs who own Man City, and PSG, which is owned by the ruler of Qatar.

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