Budget cap.

[dishydave]

Isn't another part of the proposal a squad of twenty with eight of them being academy graduates?
I can't see how they could implement that unless there's a transition process.
For instance, we already have twelve signed up of which only two (Gibbons and Campbell-Gordon) are youth team graduates.
Using that logic we'd only be able to offer contracts to two out of Cullen, Amoo, Montano, Brisley, Conlon etc. Then we'd have to find six youth team graduates (Smith is one) to offer contracts to as well.
I do personally think salary caps and squad limits sound like good long-term solutions (better than B teams anyhow) but you can't just drop in a sudden, dramatic change - there has to be a gradual movement to it over some years surely?
 

I read it as 20 plus 8 from academy

[dishydave]

That's true Howj, but then there are a load of arguments about what constitutes revenue... Humans have a clever way of weaselling around rules.
I agree that Salary cap has pros and cons, but at least its a clear measure of what a team can spend.

If this comes in you will start to see players relatives with 100k a year admin jobs at clubs

[Valiant in Brum]

I don’t think that’s the issue... it’s to stop situations like:
- Salford buying success
- Colchester where the owner has over extended himself and paid £4m in wages (based on last accounts) and now can’t afford to carry on.
- Bury who clearly couldn’t afford their mega wages but gambled on promotion saving them.
Football club owners (thankfully not our) have proven themselves over and over again as not capable of resisting that big push that will pay off eventually.
Salary cap is a very sensible move if you ask me.
Interestingly, they have them in Australian sport and the methods teams use to get round them make the front pages about once a year.
Watch out for Tom Elliot at Salford getting a job at hotel football for 2 hours a fortnight on days where there is a home game doing meet and greets for £100k a year.

It needs be implemented from the top down to be fair. Would then keep clubs stabalised and then would open up fairer competition between the leagues. Rather than how wealthy a clubs owner is for example, Man City or previously Chelsea etc. Or Stoke with Bet365 injecting cash.

[Joe B]

11 hours ago, RailwayRowdy said:

I personally don’t see any need for the introduction of a salary cap. 

If club owners are so worried about their expenditure, then they should simply not pay what agents (and ultimately the players) are demanding. Just pay what you as a club can afford.

You don’t need a salary cap to do that. 

The highlighted sentence above is whimsical thinking. Surely it has become clear that owners are doing the exact opposite, and will continue to do so until it is legally curtailed?

Clubs overspend beyond their revenue (The Championship, on average, spends 108% of club's revenue on wages, before any additional expenditure) in a gamble to win promotion, hoping the financial benefits of doing so offset any losses in the process. If losses are incurred, the owner has to benevolently/maliciously fund the gap, either through shares or directors loans. This is all well and good until the owner takes flak or gets bored, in which case they can just put the club into administration, calling in the millions of pounds of debt is has incurred to its directors, unable to pay it back.

In case you hadn't clicked, this is Port Vale 2013-2019. Norman overspent, without setting up sustainable revenue streams to pay for it, and by the end of his tenure the club was insolvent, losing circa 200k a month, having to be plugged by Big Norm's wallet. He made some stupid decisions, we kicked off, he decided he'd had enough, and if we hadn't been blessed enough to be in a position where Carol Shanahan gave a damn about Burslem, to the extent where she'd grossly overpay the club's market value to save us, we wouldn't exist right now (possibly as a phoenix club in Tier 9).

This model is broken. We've seen Bury go to the wall, we're on the verge of seeing Macclesfield do the same. Southend are not doing well. The entire financial model, which rewards short-term fiscal gambling at the expense of sustainability, simply cannot continue in its present form (even without the challenges of COVID).

A salary cap is a good idea but will require a lot of thinking; its pointless if not enforced to the Championship, as unless the manager is a miracle worker, it will be impossible to survive the step from League 1 to Championship if you go from tight wage expenditure to the financial wild west of the second tier. Also, the National League will have to be consulted; teams like Eastleigh, Fylde etc can't arrive with wage budgets in excess £1.25m and then have to cut it AFTER promotion.

Futhermore, a lot of clubs will deviously use bonuses, both financial and tangible, in order to work around the wage cap.

However, these are conversations we need to be having. Believing that clubs just need to 'pay what they can afford' with no legislation to prevent them from doing so if a dodgy owner fancies gambling 150 years of history on the off-chance his expensive, financially unsubstantiated side can sh!thouse promotion, is the reason why clubs are in financial disarray up and down the country.

If a team is sensible and doesn't pay the lucrative demands of the players/agents, there's a chairman daft/dodgy enough up the motorway who will, as there's nothing stopping them. If it costs the club, fine, he'll plug the gap, providing they get thet promotion, and he can make his money back. If they don't, that's the clubs problem. Deal with it. Fans crying outside the gates.

Parachute payments need to be re-thought too.

There is a more philosophical/moral debate at hand; is football supposed to be designed with a level playing field (ala the NFL), where teams cannot financially bully their opponents to achieve promotion, and success is therefore predicated on good management, or do we want to have a system where plucky teams can rise through the ranks at the behest of a local man done good as chairman/wealthy benefactor? Its all down to personal preference, and I think your answer to this question will guide how you feel about salary caps.

£1.25m is too low, and 8 academy products is very fanciful (4 would be achievable, with financial incentives for every player registered over 4), but in my view we have to sit down and have these discussions.

 

[robf]

2 hours ago, dishydave said:

3 hours ago, robf said:

Isn't another part of the proposal a squad of twenty with eight of them being academy graduates?
I can't see how they could implement that unless there's a transition process.
For instance, we already have twelve signed up of which only two (Gibbons and Campbell-Gordon) are youth team graduates.
Using that logic we'd only be able to offer contracts to two out of Cullen, Amoo, Montano, Brisley, Conlon etc. Then we'd have to find six youth team graduates (Smith is one) to offer contracts to as well.
I do personally think salary caps and squad limits sound like good long-term solutions (better than B teams anyhow) but you can't just drop in a sudden, dramatic change - there has to be a gradual movement to it over some years surely?
 

I read it as 20 plus 8 from academy

I don't think so, the BBC says:

If approved, it would mean only 20 senior professionals at each club, with eight homegrown players - those produced from the club's academy system - within that group.

[Doha]

5 minutes ago, robf said:

I don't think so, the BBC says:

If approved, it would mean only 20 senior professionals at each club, with eight homegrown players - those produced from the club's academy system - within that group.

That would be ridiculous. I would imagine most clubs outside of the championship have the lowest grade of academy (so least staff, facilities etc) for cost reasons. What's the <ovf censored> point when the kids get hoovered up by Man City and Arseneal mega academies for a pittance.

[robf]

1 minute ago, Doha said:

That would be ridiculous. I would imagine most clubs outside of the championship have the lowest grade of academy (so least staff, facilities etc) for cost reasons. What's the <ovf censored> point when the kids get hoovered up by Man City and Arseneal mega academies for a pittance.

That's my thoughts too. I guess it's an initial proposal so if clubs think it's crazy they won't accept it or will amend it.

I would personally think a squad of 20 with the rest from the academy is more doable as it at least allows for some cover for positions and allows teams to develop their academy rather than presuming everyone has eight youth team players ready for the first team.

[dishydave]

The problem is as we've seen the good academy lads get picked up early by the big clubs before they even get to an age where they can be offered a professional contract

[Joe B]

1 hour ago, Nofinikea said:

It will sort itself out.  Clubs will end up doing a Bury if they dont regulate themselves and if they do there are plenty waiting to take there place.

This is not required.

It genuinely won't sort itself out. It'll keep getting worse as the financial gaps grow between the leagues, and there is greater and greater incentive to gamble.

Its all well and good because we won't be affected, but thousands of people rely on their football club as important community hubs, vital for charity work, routine, and mental health for isolated people. It sounds melodramatic but I don't think it actually is. Going to the football is really important for some.

Perpetuating this business model is a ready acceptance that thousands are going to lose their football club as we continue to take a laissez-faire approach to the last remnants of community engagement left in this country.

[Warren]

I think a salary cap is difficult presently because the dynamics of the situation require owners and government to keep the clubs afloat. There is also weird perverse effect in league 2. With Bolton coming down they probably will still average 10-15 k crowds and have bigger commercial income. But if they are made to cap at a level below their natural ability to fund from income generated then the owners might think it is great at this level, we will just make more profit and stay here. Of course I appreciate the trail of financial mayhem by previous owners that brought Bolton to this situation. 

[Playa Amodores]

I remember Tommy Doc saying that when he was breaking into the game he’d represented Scotland and was at PNE. It was time to negotiate contracts and that him and Tommy Lawton had agreed to ask for £25 per week in the winter and the same in the summer. Lawton went in first and came out informing the Doc that he’d got it. The Doc says he went in and they board agreed £25 per week in the winter and £15 per week in the summer. Not being too happy about his summer salary he questioned them as to why they were paying Lawton £25 a week in the summer and him £15 a week. The board informed him that Lawton was a better player than him, to which he replied,

’Not in the F**king summer, he isn’t.

[Fosse69]

17 minutes ago, Playa Amodores said:

I remember Tommy Doc saying that when he was breaking into the game he’d represented Scotland and was at PNE. It was time to negotiate contracts and that him and Tommy Lawton had agreed to ask for £25 per week in the winter and the same in the summer. Lawton went in first and came out informing the Doc that he’d got it. The Doc says he went in and they board agreed £25 per week in the winter and £15 per week in the summer. Not being too happy about his summer salary he questioned them as to why they were paying Lawton £25 a week in the summer and him £15 a week. The board informed him that Lawton was a better player than him, to which he replied,

’Not in the F**king summer, he isn’t.

I think the Doc`s memory is going, Lawton never played for PNE, the other player would probably be  Tom  Finney ,  not that it matters to the punch line.

[Emile]

I think we should look to encourage smaller squads with some kind of max players registered. We need to stop the big clubs hording players like they're stocks and shares - it's ruining players careers.

I also think a salary cap is a good idea. A max amount a player can be paid per week, including all bonuses. Problem is clubs will always find ways round such things.

[Playa Amodores]

14 hours ago, Fosse69 said:

I think the Doc`s memory is going, Lawton never played for PNE, the other player would probably be  Tom  Finney ,  not that it matters to the punch line.

No my memory it was Finney. TY

[Fosse69]

15 hours ago, Warren said:

I think a salary cap is difficult presently because the dynamics of the situation require owners and government to keep the clubs afloat. There is also weird perverse effect in league 2. With Bolton coming down they probably will still average 10-15 k crowds and have bigger commercial income. But if they are made to cap at a level below their natural ability to fund from income generated then the owners might think it is great at this level, we will just make more profit and stay here. Of course I appreciate the trail of financial mayhem by previous owners that brought Bolton to this situation. 

The salary cap in Rugby Union turned out well. But gate money and on-site income  gives reasonable competition in football, larger crowds support the more expensive players. But excessive  sponsorship and TV money distort things, not that I can see any change in the near future. Football like all  employment  is under pressure at present, the future is uncertain.