Level playing field

Interesting article on the Telegraph site yesterday about a salary cap being introduced to the lower leagues, think a figure of 2 million per team/club was mentioned. The idea being to stop teams with rich backers ie Salford, paying way over the odds to get the best players. It was suggested that clubs would be fined £87,000? If they exceeded the cap, and the money from the fine would then be distributed among the other clubs.  Personally think this is a brilliant idea. Thoughts?

Quoted from paramariner

Interesting article on the Telegraph site yesterday about a salary cap being introduced to the lower leagues, think a figure of 2 million per team/club was mentioned. The idea being to stop teams with rich backers ie Salford, paying way over the odds to get the best players. It was suggested that clubs would be fined £87,000? If they exceeded the cap, and the money from the fine would then be distributed among the other clubs.  Personally think this is a brilliant idea. Thoughts?

It won't stop them overspending as 87K is nothing to them and less than 4K to us.

Much better to find them the same amount they have gone over the limit so if they spend 3 million they will pay a million fine. That might stop them.

Yeah your probably right, but its at least a step in the right direction. Would imagine it would be frowned upon greatly by those at top of the F.A. If teams did it and damn the consequences though.

I think if clubs have an owner that wants to spunk away (not through loans) his money on fourth division footballers, then fair enough. Any rules would be easy enough to find a way around anyway.

But the thoughts are that if clubs overspend it puts pressure on other clubs to compete, who then run the risk of going under like Bury for instance if they don't have the likes of Beckham, Giggs and billionaires to back them.  Something has to be done or the leagues will lose quite a few members I believe, and it won't be long either.

If you go over your salary cap you’re deducted 20 points . That would make overspending completely pointless.

Thought this was going to be about them removing the humps in the penalty areas.

Also if only the big teams can sign the best players it doesn't feel very fair to me.  

This is surely inevitable now for Leagues 1/2, we cannot go on as we did before.  I would even advocate it for the Premier League but there are too many powerful clubs with too much to lose.  

Quoted from MarinerDevil

This is surely inevitable now for Leagues 1/2, we cannot go on as we did before.  I would even advocate it for the Premier League but there are too many powerful clubs with too much to lose.  

Allowing everyone to spend whatever they want seems the fairest system to me.

The sentiment is there but clubs exploit the FFP rules as it is so I’d just see clubs doing the same.

The difficulty is what about those clubs that generate vast sums of income could potentially be penalised by this.

Would be interesting to see the wider football worlds views on this, surely a salary cap has to be implemented at all levels to actually make a level playing field, not just at our level because the odd club like Salford have exploited the fact they have millionaires who want a vanity project in order for them to gather up land to gentrify areas of a town or city. Let’s face it, the so called experts think Bournemouth is a wonderful story, with these principles they’d never have gone that far.

Having a salary cap at our level would then surely expose those teams if they were to be promoted in to a leave that doesn’t have one?

Like I say, the sentiment is there but I can’t see it being introduced...

Quoted from louth_in_the_south

If you go over your salary cap you’re deducted 20 points . That would make overspending completely pointless.

Agree 100%. There is little point in fining a club for exeeding the salary cap when they clearly have deep pockets anyway. The would just factor the fine into their business plan. Hit them with either a points deduction or a promotion ban.

Salford are 3 points above us.......doesnt always follow that big investors means big or instant rewards.

If someone wants to throw vast amounts of money at your hometown club, are we all going to say no thanks its not fair....I wouldnt

It works well in Rugby Union, ask Saracens.

Quoted from louth_in_the_south

If you go over your salary cap you’re deducted 20 points . That would make overspending completely pointless.

This!

fine them points not pounds.

I’m not sure about an absolute cap but I understand that clubs have ways of getting round the current voluntary income related cap (apart from not volunteering to follow It of course 😆 )

I think the cap isn’t so much about levelling the “playing” field as much as it is stopping another Bury happening.

Watch the brown paper envelopes start flying around left right and centre.  

Quoted from louth_in_the_south

If you go over your salary cap you’re deducted 20 points . That would make overspending completely pointless.

Totally agree.....points deduction is the real punishment, fines of £80k are irrelevant, they potentially will earn more than that in promotion monies etc. Pretty much any financial punishment would be pointless as they have money to burn.

Prevent them being promoted is the real kicker.

Wonder if this would be a return to golden handshakes if it happened?

And, how would the salary cap work? Is it a % of your income or the same amount for every club in the same division? Maybe it could also bring a level playing field for ticket prices so that there is a maximum price in each division

Quoted from HertsGTFC

I think the cap isn’t so much about levelling the “playing” field as much as it is stopping another Bury happening.

Watch the brown paper envelopes start flying around left right and centre.  

Brown envelopes not a problem in the short term.

Steve Evans is managing in league 1 at the moment 😎

We currently have a cap that is based on a percentage of income but it leads to a situation where an unopened hotel on the other side of the country has the naming rights for a stadium.

The only way is to make a divisional cap. I think percentage of income is a great idea too so they should combine the two. Something like:

Championship: 60% of income & £10k per week cap
League 1: 55% of income and £5k per week cap
League 2: 50% of income and £2.5k per week cap

I'm not suggesting they are the figures to run with because I don't know enough about football finances. If you make the cap too low, clubs with larger attendances will be paying the same wages as those with lower attendances (e.g. Morecambe). If we have 4x the gate receipts but our wage bill is the same, it will just increase lower league transfer fees due to the spare cash and instant demand for success.

Quoted from Boris Johnson

Salford are 3 points above us.......doesnt always follow that big investors means big or instant rewards.

If someone wants to throw vast amounts of money at your hometown club, are we all going to say no thanks its not fair....I wouldnt

Their investors have had big and fairly instant rewards though, a few years ago many wouldn't have dreamt of seeing a team like Salford in the Football League.

There have been plenty of "brown envelopes" given to players and managers. I know for a fact this happened in my younger days so am pretty much assured it will be happening now and in the future

Personally I am against financial restrictions, if I was fortunate to win a Euro millions at say £130 million, why cannot I buy town and for the next 5 years spend £10 million per year on them, that way there is always the possibility of us doing a  Bournemouth, and making it to the premiership, with financial restrictions there is usually the tendency to stop an upstart club from moving up the football ladder. The only thing I would insist on is that for every pound spent above commercial income a bond for the same amount must be deposited into a separate bank account so if the wealthy owner walks then there are funds to cover any shortfall, that way the owner is basically paying double for transfers/wages so would be more cautious how he spent.

If you spent £50million on Town you would want locking up. I would give all my money to China and Iran so that they could buy "Truth" machines.

But Golfer, I would still have £80 million to spend on important things like wine,women and cars, sorry I nicked G Best quote.

Quoted from paramariner

Interesting article on the Telegraph site yesterday about a salary cap being introduced to the lower leagues, think a figure of 2 million per team/club was mentioned. The idea being to stop teams with rich backers ie Salford, paying way over the odds to get the best players. It was suggested that clubs would be fined £87,000? If they exceeded the cap, and the money from the fine would then be distributed among the other clubs.  Personally think this is a brilliant idea. Thoughts?

I don't agree with that at all. This will only keep all the clubs down at this level. If a club is fortunate enough to have a wealthy backer who grew up in the area or whatever, let him/her invest whatever the hell they want to and drive the club up the divisions. Fk it!