Salary caps

[king canary 7,603]

2 hours ago, Aggy said:

As opposed to your definition of competition which involves artificially ‘levelling the playing field’?

My definition of competition is that you have to have as level a playing field as possible or it isnt a competition. Money is what warps that.

It wouldnt be a fair contest if we let someone pay £1m to start the 100 meters 2 seconds earlier would it?

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

Maybe the Macclesfield decision will now convince that something has to be done. If a cap helps to avoid two more teams losing points next season then it has to be at least part of an ongoing solution.

[Bethnal Yellow and Green 1,557]

50 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

Maybe the Macclesfield decision will now convince that something has to be done. If a cap helps to avoid two more teams losing points next season then it has to be at least part of an ongoing solution.

There was already a salary cap in League One and Two...

[Aggy 754]

3 hours ago, king canary said:

My definition of competition is that you have to have as level a playing field as possible or it isnt a competition. Money is what warps that.

It wouldnt be a fair contest if we let someone pay £1m to start the 100 meters 2 seconds earlier would it?

What a ridiculous example. Money doesn’t guarantee you success in football, paying higher salaries isn’t the same as bribing somebody to start a 100m race half way up the track. 

If you’re going to use ridiculous examples like that, I don’t feel bad about making this ridiculous point - why stop at salary caps? Why not say if you’ve got a good manager, you have to sack him after one trophy because it’s unfair on the opponents? Or a striker who scores twenty goals a season - unfair for one club to have him for three years in a row, you’ve got to get rid and give someone else a chance.

If you’re a well run club who has worked hard to build properly, you’ve expanded your stadium responsibly, you make more money than 15 other sides in the division, you’re one good striker away from getting promotion, you can afford to pay the wages for such a striker without causing you any financial problems at all, but you can’t because your salary cap is exceeded, how is that fair? 

Or you’re a well run club who has developed youth players, tried to do it the right way, but then a club a division above comes in and offers a few grand a week extra for your youngsters - you can’t try and match the wages because it pushes you 50 quid over the wage structure. Not talking about big prem clubs snatching players here, I’m talking about a club potentially only a few places but one division above you who can afford significantly more than you can just because they’re a division higher.

And it means you’re extremely likely to come straight back down when you do go up. If your salary cap is significantly lower than clubs the league above, whilst you might be the best side in your current division, chances are (a) your weaker players will get a salary increase when you go up so you can’t bring in many reinforcements, (b) you’ll need a lot of reinforcements because you’ve probably not got many players who are good enough for the next step up as you can’t spend decent wages in the first place and (c) most of your promising youngsters were probably poached a season or two before by average clubs from the division above who could afford an extra few grand a week.

A salary cap has the exact opposite effect of what you’re trying to create .

Edited August 11, 2020 by Aggy

[ALBOWLLY 15]

12 hours ago, keelansgrandad said:

Maybe the Macclesfield decision will now convince that something has to be done. If a cap helps to avoid two more teams losing points next season then it has to be at least part of an ongoing solution.

Not really. A quick look on Wraggs to Riches, the main Macclesfield forum, will show that living beyond their means was not the problem. They have an owner whose penny pinching has plunged them into their current mess. 

[king canary 7,603]

13 hours ago, Aggy said:

What a ridiculous example. Money doesn’t guarantee you success in football, paying higher salaries isn’t the same as bribing somebody to start a 100m race half way up the track. 

If you’re going to use ridiculous examples like that, I don’t feel bad about making this ridiculous point - why stop at salary caps? Why not say if you’ve got a good manager, you have to sack him after one trophy because it’s unfair on the opponents? Or a striker who scores twenty goals a season - unfair for one club to have him for three years in a row, you’ve got to get rid and give someone else a chance.

 

Yes it is a ridiculous example but for me the way money warps football as a competition is also ridiculous. At least my example was about money...

 

13 hours ago, Aggy said:

If you’re a well run club who has worked hard to build properly, you’ve expanded your stadium responsibly, you make more money than 15 other sides in the division, you’re one good striker away from getting promotion, you can afford to pay the wages for such a striker without causing you any financial problems at all, but you can’t because your salary cap is exceeded, how is that fair? 

How is it not fair? If you're one striker away from promotion but you're at the salary cap limit then it suggests you've not used it as well as you could. That team could sell someone else to free up cap or they could look to innovate tactically rather than just going down the route of buying that success. A cap forces clubs to try and be clever to work within the restrictions. For me, that is much more interesting than just saying '**** it, lets drop another £10m and £30k a week.'

We clearly disagree on the fundamentals of competition. For me, your income, turnover, wealth of owner etc etc shouldn't be a major influence on your chances to win a competition. Right now, two of the top 4 teams in the country are there because of the whims of billionaires. The other two are they are such commercial juggernauts that they can get companies to pay huge sums to be their 'official noodle partner' or some such ****. Commendable business but nothing to do with sport. You'll never be able to completely get rid of the advantage (more money will likely lead to better coaching, training facilities etc) but right now it infers far too much of an advantage.

What I want to see is the best team being decided on the pitch, not on balance sheets. 

Currently teams aren't rewarded for sensible financial management. Arsenal and Spurs both invest heavily in new stadiums as part of a long term plan to increase revenues but get punished as they can't keep up with the short term spending of a Man City or Utd. Similarly, we're one of the better run clubs in the Premier League yet finish flat bottom. 

For me a salary cap is just the start- football in this country has become largely unsustainable and uncompetitive. I'd be in favour of significantly more drastic measures further down the line but a salary cap is a step in the right direction in my opinion.

 

[sgncfc 1,227]

22 hours ago, king canary said:

This is just demonstrably untrue- most clubs in League One make losses.

The issue is the money for player wages clearly isn't available and too many teams chase the dream to get promoted, particularly in the Championship where the majority of the league spend at least 90% of their turnover on wages and barely anyone breaks even let alone makes a profit.

Virtually every club in the EPL and the EFL make losses if you ignore the top 8 or 9 in the EPL. Trading losses have little to do with whether a club goes bust - net worth is the critical factor, and financial support from shareholders/owners which convinces the auditors that the club is still a going concern. Football has always been run this way. There is no "dream" for L1 clubs to chase, the Championship is a much more expensive league to take part in and there is very little difference in the income generated. 

What Parry is trying to do is make every club live within the means he is creating for them, because he doesn't think the owners can or are prepared to do it themselves. His method of doing that is a salary cap, rather than actually implementing the existing FFP regulations more effectively.