The Sweeper: Sol Campbell, Notts County and the Supposed Salary Cap

Sol Campbell

Big Story

Sol Campbell to Notts County?  Seriously?  We all know the club is in the money after their takeover by a mysterious middle eastern consortium and following the appointment of Sven Goran Eriksson, but this “reported” move makes me wonder what’s going in League Two.

The problem is, there is supposed to be a salary cap in League Two which restricts clubs spending no more than 60 per cent of their turnover on wages. Given the small turnover Notts County must have had last season with an average attendance of 4,445 in the league last year, it seems the rules would have to be stretched beyond breaking point when it’s reported that “the club is willing to offer Campbell Premier League level wages, understood to be in the region of £90,000-a-week.”

Discussing this on Twitter this morning, Gary Andrews pointed out the rule has rarely been enforced in League Two. I pointed out that’s true enough, but still, there’s a point where it’s just taking the piss to bend the rules so blatantly.

Europe

North America

  • Wendy Parker has a good piece on the ongoing debate in the U.S. over who controls youth development, with the battle between the established youth clubs and the encroaching academies of MLS teams, backed by the USSF. Below the surface, the outcome of this may determine the U.S.’s chances of winning a World Cup in the next two decades.
  • I’ve only lived in the U.S. for a little under a decade, but outside of a World Cup itself, I don’t remember having seeing so much hype about an event as for the U.S.-Mexico World Cup qualifier this Wednesday. Imagine if the match wasn’t on a weekday on an obscure channel; it’ll be fascinating to see what the ratings are anyway. There’s plenty on it to read (I liked Grant Wahl’s piece on memorable moments in the rivalry), including a piece at the NYT on the infamous altitude challenge of the Azteca, with continued debate over whether the U.S. team’s late arrival was the correct decision scientifically or not.
  • EA Sports announced today that Mexican national team star Cuauhtemoc Blanco will grace the cover of FIFA 2010, and released a video featuring Blanco destroying the U.S. team and scoring on Tim Howard. The Offside Rules points out this might be a smidgen insensive of EA to USMNT fans:  “Either they’ve made a choice as to who they’re siding with on Wednesday or they possess a significant lack of knowledge/sensitivity when it comes to soccer culture; how do you think the English market would react to a similar promo that featured Michael Ballack finishing off England just before they met in a crucial Euro qualifier?”  Point taken, even though there’s a good number more fans of Blanco in the U.S. than there are of Ballack in England.
  • At the New York Times’ Goal blog, Jack Bell asks what Red Bull New York can do to resurrect their season, which is a bit like asking what the Titanic could do to start sailing again.
  • Sunday’s post on Seattle and Portland’s contrasting cultures generated the most page views in Pitch Invasion history, along with an intense debate in the comments. Who knew the two fanbases would go at it like that? (As a sidenote, overall traffic is up 70% over the past two months — thanks so much for visiting. I also fixed a small glitch in the comments system that I’ve realised may have inadvertently blocked a few genuine comments as spams, so if you’ve ever had a problem before, apologies and be confident your next comment will go through.)

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Written by

Tom Dunmore is the founder of Pitch Invasion. Originally from Brighton, England, he's now resident in Chicago. He is also the editor of XI Quarterly and the author of a Historical Dictionary of Soccer. Follow Tom @tomdunmore on Twitter.

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