Salary Caps after Covid

[ahemps]

Juventus are imposing their own salary cap (although they are excluding Ronaldo from it). I've also heard a lot of media pundits talking about salary caps in the English lower leagues to prevent their catastrophic spending on wages.

Would salary caps help clubs be more financially sound?

Does anyone think salary caps could work in football in general and in Scottish football?

[BawWatchin]

So they're going to cap the salary of every player they have on their payroll. With the exception of one of those players?

I can see that one going down really well.

Edited May 13, 2020 by BawWatchin

[Northboy]

Salary caps are open to all kinds of enforcement and manipulation issues even in sports where it is recognised (see Premiership Rugby in England). If it were to come into force I'll be looking to buy shares in any company that makes large, brown envelopes.

[craigkillie]

A salary cap would be difficult to implement in Scotland giving the wide variety of club sizes we have within individual divisions. Either it's so high that it has zero impact on clubs outside the top two, or it's so small that it affects the prospects of any of the clubs competing in Europe. A rule based on percentage of turnover might be more reasonable.

Edited May 13, 2020 by craigkillie

[BFTD]

Would be good for a laugh if somebody proposed a top-tier cap roughly equivalent to, say, Kilmarnock's annual wage budget, though.

The statements. Oh my, the statements.

[ahemps]

2 hours ago, BawWatchin said:

So they're going to cap the salary of every player they have on their payroll. With the exception of one of those players?

I can see that one going down really well.

On further investigation  it is actually for new recruits going forward and it is self imposed so it could easily be lifted. The new limit is £150k a week or £7.5m a year, not exactly peanuts.

There is already a massive difference in wages between players anyway, why would a cap (or 1 exception to the cap) make a difference? Surely a fringe player at Juventus isn't going to complain that Ronaldo makes more money than him.

[Richey Edwards]

Why is Ronaldo exempt from the cap?

[ahemps]

53 minutes ago, Richey Edwards said:

Why is Ronaldo exempt from the cap?

He's not, it's new signings that are now going to have to accept they have an upper wage limit. Current contracts are still being honored.

[Hampden Diehard]

On 14/05/2020 at 16:02, ahemps said:

He's not, it's new signings that are now going to have to accept they have an upper wage limit. Current contracts are still being honored.

And if they want him after his current contract is up, they'll offer him a cap-busting salary.

It's simple economics; only pay what you can afford. For guys that increase revenue, like Ronaldo, you can justify paying more.

I'm old enough to remember Cruyff signing for Barca and their average crowds doubled to 80,000. He was worth the big wage they paid him that people said was ridiculous.

[bluearmyfaction]

11 hours ago, Hampden Diehard said:

 

It's simple economics; only pay what you can afford.

What's killing the game is that clubs are not paying what THEY can afford; they are paying for what THEIR OWNERS can afford.  It's not a free or fair market because it relies from money outside the market.

 

If the authorities restricted money to just that generated from the game, then it would make more economic sense.  Few players at loss-making clubs are actually earning their wages because they're not generating the income to pay for them.  They're benefitting from oligarchs backing other clubs and dragging the average wage up. 

 

I'd go a lot further with this.   E.g. you don't get 50,000 at Celtic Park to watch Celtic v nobody.  They still need an opponent.  So, economically, the opponent is required for the crowd.  And therefore the opponent should get a share of the gate money.  And you need a second division to make the first worthwhile, and so on...

[craigkillie]

On 15/06/2020 at 08:23, bluearmyfaction said:

What's killing the game is that clubs are not paying what THEY can afford; they are paying for what THEIR OWNERS can afford.  It's not a free or fair market because it relies from money outside the market.

If the authorities restricted money to just that generated from the game, then it would make more economic sense.  Few players at loss-making clubs are actually earning their wages because they're not generating the income to pay for them.  They're benefitting from oligarchs backing other clubs and dragging the average wage up.

This is what Financial Fair Play aims to do.

[bluearmyfaction]

Indeed, and it's a start.  It still has massive flaws though.

E.g. in the EFL Championship.  A team is still allowed to lose £15m over three years and pass the FFP test.   That's basically one year's total income.  It's not profitable or sustainable over a long period.

 

But, if that club has a rich owner, willing to throw money away, the amount of loss allowed is £39m.  Which is a huge advantage in the division.

 

And it doesn't stop there.  If the team has just come down after spending three years in the Premier League, the amount of loss allowed in the first Championship season - even without a bankrolling owner - is something like £67m.  That's on top of receiving £40m extra in parachute money alone, plus, in practice, the club may have made profits in those Premier League seasons.  It means a relegated team can pass FFP despite spending £100m net.  In a division where other teams cannot spend more than £20m to pass the same test.

 

Over the last few seasons, statistically, a Championship team is something like six times as likely to make the top six as a team that is not.  And it percolates down.  The bottom three in the EFL, right now, are the promoted teams from League 1.  And two of the top three have parachute money, the third being the biggest team in the division by a long chalk.

 

It's getting dangerously close to permanency.  The same 25 clubs or so in the top flight over the piece, the same 25 clubs or so in the Championship.

[ahemps]

1 hour ago, bluearmyfaction said:

It's getting dangerously close to permanency.  The same 25 clubs or so in the top flight over the piece, the same 25 clubs or so in the Championship.

I agree with this theory but in reality it doesn't always work that way, Huddersfield, Stoke and Sunderland have shown that the championship is an extremely difficult league to be in. There have always been clubs that could be classed as yo-yo clubs and that is the same in most league structures.

The biggest state of permanency is at the top of the top leagues. I heard a fact that something like 13 of Europe's leagues currently have teams on record breaking concurrent champions which doesn't include Scotland has we already have a record of 9 in a row which has now been achieved 3 times. Bayern Munich who had never broke 3 in a row are currently about to get 8, Juventus are on 8 going for 9, La liga has a duopoly along with the likes of Portugal and Holland, Ligue 1 is a done deal before a ball is kicked. The smaller leagues are just as bad, Zagreb have won 13 out of the last 14 titles, Qarabag are on 6 in a row, Bate Borisov won 13 in a row until last season but have only finished outside the top 2 twice since the 90's.

[bluearmyfaction]

Yes, thanks to the Champions League for the most part.  A million in prize money can destroy a small league and the much bigger prize money destroys a bigger league.  Especially as the Premier League in England is, weirdly, one of the best for sharing the wealth amongst its members.  

 

One of the worst is FC Copenhagen, who have won 12 titles since 2001, and only formed a few years before as a merger between the two biggest sides in the city, after Brondby fought their way to success.  It's like the Real and Atletico Madrid merging if Getafe won La Liga.

[ahemps]

49 minutes ago, bluearmyfaction said:

One of the worst is FC Copenhagen, who have won 12 titles since 2001, and only formed a few years before as a merger between the two biggest sides in the city, after Brondby fought their way to success.  It's like the Real and Atletico Madrid merging if Getafe won La Liga.

FC Midtjylland who are their closest competitors these days were also created through a merger of two rival clubs who weren't making an impact. Imagine smaller clubs merging to become bigger and being able to compete with the establishment.........

51 minutes ago, bluearmyfaction said:

Yes, thanks to the Champions League for the most part.  A million in prize money can destroy a small league and the much bigger prize money destroys a bigger league.  Especially as the Premier League in England is, weirdly, one of the best for sharing the wealth amongst its members.  

 

Champions league has almost single handedly ruined many European leagues as a genuine competion but then Celtic tell every club in Scotland that they should support them as when they qualify and get £30m the rest get about £100k.....which they should be grateful for.

[FairWeatherFan]

3 hours ago, ahemps said:

La liga has a duopoly along with the likes of Portugal and Holland,

With Ajax, PSV, and Feyenoord winning in the last 3 years Holland can say they still have their Big 3, the Big 3 in Portugal is becoming a bit a twosome. When Sporting won their last title in 2001-02 it was their 18th. Which tied them with Porto on x18 with Benfica in the lead on 30.

Since then they're stuck on x18 with Porto on x28 and Benfica on x37.

[ahemps]

21 minutes ago, FairWeatherFan said:

With Ajax, PSV, and Feyenoord winning in the last 3 years Holland can say they still have their Big 3

That comment was possibly unfair on Holland as Twente and AZ have won the league within the last 12 years and AZ were level at the top before Covid, hopefully that doesn't turn out to be  a missed opportunity but Feyenoord have only won the league once this century. I hope they don't becoming like Sporting and fall too far behind PSV and Ajax in the long run. 

[Andy groundhopper]

Think Scottish football will be ok without salary caps,the money is basically created by the big two and the tv deals. Can't imagine clubs would be wildly overspending (look at the sickening debts in the EPL)  Covid19 aside, we don't hear many stories about clubs on the verge of collapse in Scotland - not exactly overrun with sugar daddies up north, think clubs will just tighten their belts.

[lambcherylnn]

COVID influenced my salary, and luckily it increased. I started to work from home, and my salary depends on the amount of work during the month. So at work, I am more concentrated on my job, and I can spend more time completing orders, and the quality of my work increases. The main problem is that I don't get pay stubs, which creates problems sometimes. I had to show a pay stub to buy a car in leasing to the bank, so I had to use the Pay Stub Creator to make a fake pay stub so they could give me the leasing.

Edited January 30, 2022 by lambcherylnn

[parsforlife]

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