Would You Like To See Player Wages Regulated

I'd like to see an American style system - a salary cap on teams, rather than individual players. You can still choose to pay 300k a week to Rooney if you so choose, but that uses a big chunk of your allowed team salary, and other players would have to be paid less to compensate. The problem is the traditional big clubs would have no interest in that, because it levels the playing field with the "lesser" teams.

Imo it'll never change - people have been saying for years football will eat itself alive, but the money keeps going up and up. The idea of 200k a week was absurd 7 or 8 years ago - now we're talking falcao on 385k a week and Ronaldo having a €1b release clause. All the time billionaires retain an interest in football, nothing will change.

brightonrock said:

I'd like to see an American style system - a salary cap on teams, rather than individual players. You can still choose to pay 300k a week to Rooney if you so choose, but that uses a big chunk of your allowed team salary, and other players would have to be paid less to compensate. The problem is the traditional big clubs would have no interest in that, because it levels the playing field with the "lesser" teams.

Imo it'll never change - people have been saying for years football will eat itself alive, but the money keeps going up and up. The idea of 200k a week was absurd 7 or 8 years ago - now we're talking falcao on 385k a week and Ronaldo having a €1b release clause. All the time billionaires retain an interest in football, nothing will change.

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The thing I really like with the team cap system is the ludicrous horse trading it generates in an attempt clear cap space. It's great.

brightonrock said:

I'd like to see an American style system - a salary cap on teams, rather than individual players. You can still choose to pay 300k a week to Rooney if you so choose, but that uses a big chunk of your allowed team salary, and other players would have to be paid less to compensate. The problem is the traditional big clubs would have no interest in that, because it levels the playing field with the "lesser" teams.

Imo it'll never change - people have been saying for years football will eat itself alive, but the money keeps going up and up. The idea of 200k a week was absurd 7 or 8 years ago - now we're talking falcao on 385k a week and Ronaldo having a €1b release clause. All the time billionaires retain an interest in football, nothing will change.

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In the MLS the contracts are all owned by the governing body. Its a completely different structure that would never work in Europe, it'll work fine when we introduce the draft as well. And the system of Designated Players being sent to a club they want to join, and the MLS covers some of Designated Players wages. How would that work here? Does the Football League/Premier League cover that?

What do people feel is the limit? If Man City's is currently around £120m and Wigan were doing it on £25m where's the common ground? Even if you went to £40-£50 a year the smaller clubs will never get close to that and could still bankrupt themselves.

Also, if wages are limited doesn't this mean that the transfer market will be pushed to the extreme? Manchester City & Real Madrid are currently spending around 50% on wages, common sense will dictate that fees will skyrocket as clubs will know that every man and and his dog has tens of millions extra burning a hole in their pockets and can demand more. This will filter it way down the leagues, and can't distort the price of Championship & L1 players. So while an average PL player may only get £50,000 a week but he may cost £30m in a transfer fees.

You'll still have the same money in football just being spent in other ways.

Wage caps are not the answer, reasons or incentives to remain profitable well run business' would be better. No?

It's impossible to put in to practise so no point even debating it

El Presidente said:

2: £100,000 a week isn't ridiculous, it's the market rate. Football is a meritocracy, the best tend to be paid the most.

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Market rate. Interesting given that, by and large, clubs cannot really afford the wages.

happypig said:

I voted no. I'd rather see legislation whereby the lowest paid person in an organisation has to be paid (off the top of my head) a minimum of 2.5% of what the top earner gets, so if the chairman is "worth" a million quid a year, then the least anyone else is worth is £25k.

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Yes.

luge said:

Financial Fair Play is great in theory, but will ultimately fail because there is a groundswell of opposition against it within the game.

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Where is this groundswell of opposition to FFP? Are you talking about a few clubs that know they are in breach of the limits and face sanctions? If so, that's hardly a groundswell. Perhaps you could provide some links!

The incredible revenue from TV rights ( which are set to keep rising ) has created the market place for ever increasing wages. These enormous sums should have safeguarded the whole professional footballing pyramid for years to come.
Two thirds of all income at PL level now goes on players wages and agent payments. Most of the leading clubs rely on the largesse of extremely wealthy owners.
No other industry on earth pays such a high percentage of its income on wages. Most professional clubs in this country are struggling to survive and most are posting annual losses. Football is a 'results ' business and yet players are paid vast sums of money irrespective of how they perform. Fans can watch a player ' under perform ' for weeks or even months, safe in the knowledge that he is still earning his £20k/£50k/£100k per week. Football is a team game, all reliant on each other and yet there can be a vast disparity between teammates earnings. Surely, there is an argument for a standard basic wage for a first team squad player ( e.g £5k per week ) and then bonus payments, structured around an agreed percentage throughout the industry. For example....basic wages would then account for less than £10m per year and then bonuses could be paid out of a further pot, providing total wages ( basic + bonuses do not exceed 50% of any clubs total income.
Therefore a club like Man Utd earning roughly £150m a season from gate, ground and commercial revenue would have up to £75m a year to spend on wages. Yes, it would mean that most players would be earning less but if all the governing bodies took this on board there wouldn't be a vast movement of players chasing more money elsewhere. Man Utd could still decide to pay Rooney £15m per year but it would leave a lot less for equally ( if not more ) talented players in the squad. It could force clubs to re-consider the true worth of players more and maybe structure their bonus systems more carefully.
It doesn't look like football is going to ' eat itself ' in the short term. There is more and more money coming into the game from outside sources and there is every indication that costs in football will continue to rise. It leaves these biggest questions.
Will fans continue to respect an industry that pays employees more than bosses? Will fans continue to respect and support an industry where the employees take little or no responsibilty and yet get all the reward and the bosses, who take the lions share of responsiblity, carry the can for the failure of the employees to carry out their jobs to the best of their ability ( sometimes for long periods ) Will fans continue to pay ever increasing prices when they do not perceive that they are getting the best value for money. Will the fans eventually decide the future course of the game, rather than FIFA, EUFA, the PL, the FA, SKY or BT.
I've heard all the arguments re market forces, entertainment, nothing that can be done, free market, good luck to the players etc but I hope I'm not alone when I say that I worry for the long term future of the football pyramid in this country. It has to be safeguarded and this vast amount of money coming into the game should go towards that. We cannot allow a vast chasm to be created when the majority are only interested in a very few and the rest are left to rot and decline.
Football is about hope and aspiration. About improving oneself and climbing upwards. About playing in the FA Cup in August ( July for some ) and hoping to reach the colder months. It shouldn't be all about overrated individuals on £15m per year who claim they haven't reached their maturity yet and rely on agents to extract huge wage rise out of their employers every two years, even though their performances don't necessarily warrant it. Common sense has to eventually prevail but it needs a massive attitude change in the whole industry and I'm not holding my breath.

Arkwright said:

I can see both sides, however voted yes, clubs are bankrupting themselves to buy success without investing into the long term future.

At times on NSC we moan about he lack of investment on the field and yet the board are trying to run the club as a business and invest into long term infrastructure.

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This.

Owning a football club should not be about gambling (by building up debt) in the hopes of a future payoff (PL TV payouts). A long term business plan based on sustainability should be a minimum requirement and clubs should be made to stick (within reason) to the plans they have set out.

The entire board of directors from any club which goes into administration should be banned for life from ever having a position of authority at a club - no excuses, no second chances. Fail once and you are out.

Passing the "fit and proper" test should actually be quite difficult and require something other than just deep pockets.


If the owners/chairs of every pro club were "fit and proper" then the issues around player wages would self regulate because no club would be allowed into stupid financial contracts that risk the overall club. Therefore silly wage demands/transfer deals would go unanswered and very quickly the agents will be advising their players to accept lower offers because they know that's all that will be offered.

Interesting arguments from both sides, but where will we be in say, 10 years time? There has to be a limit to how much a player can earn? There has to be a limit to how much Sky pay for rights? Can't we put all football back on terrestrial TV - would that add to or help solve the problem?