Comments on: The Sweeper: Premier League to Put On Salary Cap?

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 14:22:10 +0000

I think a better and more easily enforceable short-term solution would be squad limits, say 25 senior professionals. This would prevent the top clubs from hoarding talented youngsters from across the world and if they encountered an injury crisis, they would have to give games to their own youth team products. Perhaps this could be followed by limits on both permanent transfer and loan transfers, though this would undoubtedly be contested by the EU as restriction of movement on employees.

By: olexx

olexx — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 10:20:27 +0000

Looks to me that grownups should not need an allowance.
That told, I’m tickled at even the possibility of an American thought being adopted in European soccer. Next up: postseason matches and then an All-Star Game.

By: Clarkeonenil

Clarkeonenil — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:06:40 +0000

Their is a way to ensure Salary caps by stelth, simply make it a requirement of PL/CCC membership that football clubs can’t borrow more than the equivilant of1% of their turnover…

In terms of relegation some ManU and Spurs fans will tell their favcourate season was the one they spent in the old Div2/

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:52:53 +0000

A luxury tax may be the easiest to implement, but there still needs to be limits in place to prevent teams from borrowing themselves into oblivion. Limiting net transfer expenses based on club profitability could be one way to shore up the teams finances and bring back some competitive balance.

By: KT

KT — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:41:01 +0000

And every time I’ve heard the broadcast of an English promotion playoff, the announcers say something along the lines of “Well, it’s not completely fair, but it really is exciting, isn’t it?”

Point being: never say never. I’m sure in 1980 the concept was completely a non-starter. But you never know. We Yanks occasionally have workable ideas.

By: Mat

Mat — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:25:09 +0000

Squad limits and a Luxury Tax. Strangely, baseball’s system would probably work best.

By: Tim Vickerman

Tim Vickerman — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 13:12:24 +0000

>If everyone is on an equal playing field money-wise, it would be terrible for football if a club like Manchester >United got relegated.

Why? I think it would be fantastic for the English game to become unpredictable as it once was. The salary cap had many flaws, limiting it to a percentage of turnover would make it harder than ever for smaller clubs to compete as even if they found a sugar daddy, they wouldn’t be able to spend crazy money to bring their squads in line with the top clubs. Clubs would also find ways to be creative in how they pay players, too. And a salary cap would have to be Europe-wide with the same limit imposed on clubs in England, Spain, Germany and Italy.

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:56:28 +0000

Ironic that the NFL will most likely be without a salary cap next season, no?

By: Luke

Luke — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:03:31 +0000

Allow for unlimited spending with a luxury tax, hence a billionaire owner that goes over a % of his revenues as far as player spending send 500,000 for every million to the rest of the teams.

By: Tom Dunmore

Tom Dunmore — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 18:00:10 +0000

Matthew — my guess would be (as is sort of intimated in Sullivan’s post) that a salary cap in the Premier League wouldn’t be a hard cap like in MLS, but a proportion of turnover (some might say this would automatically favour the bigger teams). I think in the Football League, the cap on wages is at 60% of turnover, though perhaps someone could confirm or correct me.