Championship Wage Cap Proposals

[65Vintage 5]

Apologies if this has been discussed before, but these wage cap proposals, potentially commencing next season, appear to affect NCFC, without the Club (or Bournemouth or Watford) being able to have any say in what happens!

The proposed £18M wage cap will surely make it even more difficult gear up to compete, if promoted to the Premier League, and also to compete if relegated back to the Championship.

The link to the Sky article is below (hope it is clickable - if not could someone please make it?) I didn't know about these proposals, but I am probably behind everyone else!

 

Championship clubs to discuss £18m salary cap for next season | Football News | Sky Sports

 

 

 

[The Real Buh 3,423]

It’s only going up and down like we do that you realise the EFL is a different type of football. It’s a different brand. It’s what I consider “proper football” or “actual football” not the absolute joke we see in the premier league.

I think we should be in favour of every attempt to conserve this brand of football, because a split is coming.

[king canary 7,578]

51 minutes ago, 65Vintage said:

Apologies if this has been discussed before, but these wage cap proposals, potentially commencing next season, appear to affect NCFC, without the Club (or Bournemouth or Watford) being able to have any say in what happens!

The proposed £18M wage cap will surely make it even more difficult gear up to compete, if promoted to the Premier League, and also to compete if relegated back to the Championship.

The link to the Sky article is below (hope it is clickable - if not could someone please make it?) I didn't know about these proposals, but I am probably behind everyone else!

 

Championship clubs to discuss £18m salary cap for next season | Football News | Sky Sports

 

 

 

Wage caps are inevitable and £18m is around a sensible level i think.

The glass half full view is that it may help to pull the ridiculous wages for lower level prem teams down.

The glass half empty is that you'd end up with a huge gap and teams just yo yoing all the time.

[Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man 3,777]

The problem with this proposal is that you're going to create a bigger gap somewhere. It will probably be between the bottom of the Premier League and the top of the Championship which will make it harder for any promoted side to survive, or possibly it will make the gap bigger between the 'big six' who don't have to worry about relegation and the rest who may start to be more careful. Or it could even be both...

[Badger 2,405]

I agree with those that suggest that it will make it harder for promoted clubs to survive promotion. Even more of a concern is that it may be harder to retain our best players.

I suspect that clubs will probably try to reduce their first team squads and fill it up with promising youngsters - e.g. have 15 players on an average of £1 million and make the remaining 10 share 3 million (or something along these lines). This assumes that the £18 million is for just the 25 squad players.

The other interesting thing will be whether relegated teams are allowed an adjustment period, which would ease things slightly.

 

 

Edited December 15, 2020 by Badger
Corrected mistake

[Canary Wundaboy 1,358]

Make no mistake, this is designed to screw clubs like us. Clubs that go up and down and occasionally survive in the EPL, knocking down a "proper" Premier League team to an unsustainable Championship level. All the wage increases, the financial mess that is UK football, has filtered DOWN from the EPL. The problem is there, not at Championship level. This is attacking the symptom, not the cause, because the big names in football don't want to attack the EPL "product".

[cambridgeshire canary 6,675]

2 hours ago, The Real Buh said:

It’s only going up and down like we do that you realise the EFL is a different type of football. It’s a different brand. It’s what I consider “proper football” or “actual football” not the absolute joke we see in the premier league.

I think we should be in favour of every attempt to conserve this brand of football, because a split is coming.

Of course. That's sadly the modern attitude.

 

Top divison- Unlimited money and all the love, media coverage and support they need

 

Any divison below them- Screw them

[Big O 225]

1 hour ago, Canary Wundaboy said:

Make no mistake, this is designed to screw clubs like us. Clubs that go up and down and occasionally survive in the EPL, knocking down a "proper" Premier League team to an unsustainable Championship level. All the wage increases, the financial mess that is UK football, has filtered DOWN from the EPL. The problem is there, not at Championship level. This is attacking the symptom, not the cause, because the big names in football don't want to attack the EPL "product".

Short term you may be right but ultimately it helps us. There are an increasing number of rich owners in the championship, in fact I’m sure I saw something that said Delia was the second poorest. As a self funding club this surely would help us as a level financial playing field would mean it would then come down to coaching and development of top youngsters through to the first team (as they usually earn less). This is something we already have established and then they would be surrounded by some more expensive senior pros. Of course all good players in the championship would have no loyalty whatsoever as the premier league wage would be significantly more.

Edited December 15, 2020 by Big O
Typo

[Indy 3,283]

Personally to do it so it has minimal effect the premiership should be capped to a sensible level too.

[KiwiScot 1,436]

You have to look at were football is and is going and what you want it to be. The premier league and equivalents in Europe are out of control in relation the average working person. But that's life and money talks and thats straight up there with other sports leagues abroad. Big money big business. But something has to give so this is simply ringfencing an opposition and collecting members for how you're going to run lower league football differently. The big money game will continue

Personally I dislike the max squad size of 25 due to the number of games.

[East Rider 548]

1 hour ago, Indy said:

Personally to do it so it has minimal effect the premiership should be capped to a sensible level too.

This would be the obvious route. Can't see it happening anytime soon though.

Being mercenary, the key would be to spend the next 3 years minimum in the PL, then if relegated we could afford the bridging from our PL wages to the championship wages over the two or three allowable years. Within that time hopefully we could get promoted again, with the advantage of a better squad compared to those who had to adjust for the cap, in the championship (in theory).

The only winners without a PL wage cap being introduced is the top six. Difficult times ahead possibly

 

[Indy 3,283]

37 minutes ago, East Rider said:

This would be the obvious route. Can't see it happening anytime soon though.

Being mercenary, the key would be to spend the next 3 years minimum in the PL, then if relegated we could afford the bridging from our PL wages to the championship wages over the two or three allowable years. Within that time hopefully we could get promoted again, with the advantage of a better squad compared to those who had to adjust for the cap, in the championship (in theory).

The only winners without a PL wage cap being introduced is the top six. Difficult times ahead possibly

 

What’s really scares that highest earners in the premier would earn more in a year than the figure quoted at 18 million! I’m sure Sterling is on £400k a week isn’t he? How can that be? 

[Crafty Canary 495]

The salary cap covers agents’s fees and taxes too so this will likely mean a reduction in money flowing out of the game and into the pockets of the agents.

[sgncfc 1,221]

This is nothing to do with the EPL. This is the EFL trying to make sure that those with parachute payments don't totally dominate. It won't result in yo-yoing at all. What it will do is mean that when a club is relegated from the EPL pretty much all their players will leave or take a massive pay reduction, so a relegated club will be left with those players who cannot get a transfer back to the EPL. It means that any young, hungry player will have a guarantee that he can leave at a reasonable price on relegation so that he isn't left high and dry.

No one yet knows what "dispensation" will be agreed but the next step here is no relegation at all. We already have a competitive league - what are we trying to fix?

Norwich's salary bill this year is estimated in that article at £28m - let's say it is accurate (I've no idea), we have to trim £10m from our 25 man squad. That's probably Aarons, Pukki, Cantwell, Buendia and Krul gone. It means we can't loan in players like Gibson from the EPL. We already can no longer recruit from the EU so we will all be fishing in the same pond for younger, up and coming UK players.

Promotion would actually be a nightmare - existing players wanting rewards and more money but not good enough to keep us there and then every relegated team has to start again. 

Any attempt at a wage cap will be shambolic. Restricting someone's ability to earn money has never worked long term; it will never work. The EFL needs to recruit people to run it who have some intellect and innovation, rather than Rick Parry and his mates who are all steeped in EPL history and stuck in the 1990s. Get some younger ex-players in there who know the modern game and what motivates and drives players in the EFL and suddenly we would see some ideas we could all buy into.

[andrew norwichcity 8]

This and brexit is going to severely harm the football we as Norwich fans see. Goodbye to the days of signing any foreign players of any decency. If we looked at our squad now and applied the two rules coming into play... just how many of our squad would we not be able to sign either from a work permit point of view or wages?

I was starting to lose my interest in football from a personal playing/managing a team perspective. Then you add in all this tripe. One day there will be such a plethora of rules and regulations you won't be able to do anything! Norwich are a self sustainable club and our wage bill is high because of our success of getting to the premiership and selling talented players we have grown ourselves - will we be forced to continue this but adhere to a wage cap meaning we just make money we can't afford to spend once we're relegated and this process continue until we're just a bang average championship team?

[king canary 7,578]

8 hours ago, sgncfc said:

This is nothing to do with the EPL. This is the EFL trying to make sure that those with parachute payments don't totally dominate. It won't result in yo-yoing at all. What it will do is mean that when a club is relegated from the EPL pretty much all their players will leave or take a massive pay reduction, so a relegated club will be left with those players who cannot get a transfer back to the EPL. It means that any young, hungry player will have a guarantee that he can leave at a reasonable price on relegation so that he isn't left high and dry.

No one yet knows what "dispensation" will be agreed but the next step here is no relegation at all. We already have a competitive league - what are we trying to fix?

Norwich's salary bill this year is estimated in that article at £28m - let's say it is accurate (I've no idea), we have to trim £10m from our 25 man squad. That's probably Aarons, Pukki, Cantwell, Buendia and Krul gone. It means we can't loan in players like Gibson from the EPL. We already can no longer recruit from the EU so we will all be fishing in the same pond for younger, up and coming UK players.

Promotion would actually be a nightmare - existing players wanting rewards and more money but not good enough to keep us there and then every relegated team has to start again. 

Any attempt at a wage cap will be shambolic. Restricting someone's ability to earn money has never worked long term; it will never work. The EFL needs to recruit people to run it who have some intellect and innovation, rather than Rick Parry and his mates who are all steeped in EPL history and stuck in the 1990s. Get some younger ex-players in there who know the modern game and what motivates and drives players in the EFL and suddenly we would see some ideas we could all buy into.

Wage caps work fine in other sports.

We may be doing ok but the Championship as a whole is totally crazy and Championship wages are out of control and need to come down. The EFL has tried FFP, tried to trust clubs to be sensible and it doesn't work- wage caps are the only solution to actually making this happen.

The below graph is a clear indicator of the state of the issue...

Over 50% of the clubs are spending more on wages than they have in turnover. This is a receipe for absolute disaster.

The fact is, at some point, players such as those you listed probably need to adjust their wage expectations- clubs can't go on paying out more in wages than they make in a year. 

[YellowYawner 6]

7 minutes ago, king canary said:

Wage caps work fine in other sports.

They may do but are there any examples where the top league is exempt?

What happens in a year when a team like Everton, Newcastle or West Ham get relegated? Know that with their owners they will survive and instead of cutting their wage bill just ride the year out and outcompete everyone else with their vastly superior squad. It's much less a dilemma when the point deduction isn't coming until they return to the top flight.

I honestly don't think there's an acceptable solution in this unless the premier league has one too. The big boys will hate that but maybe that's where we are heading anyway.

Spending a lot of money must have been a lot of fun when it basically guaranteed you a champions league space. I can only think it's a matter of time before the bubble explodes. You have the likes of Arsenal and United wanting to sack their manager every 5 minutes without wanting to acknowledge the fact that they are just not as good as they were and thats with only Spurs and Leicester looking like they are going to muscle their way in. God knows what happens when eventually someone like Newcastle actually manage to join the financial elite as well.

[king canary 7,578]

1 minute ago, YellowYawner said:

They may do but are there any examples where the top league is exempt?

What happens in a year when a team like Everton, Newcastle or West Ham get relegated? Know that with their owners they will survive and instead of cutting their wage bill just ride the year out and outcompete everyone else with their vastly superior squad. It's much less a dilemma when the point deduction isn't coming until they return to the top flight.

I honestly don't think there's an acceptable solution in this unless the premier league has one too. The big boys will hate that but maybe that's where we are heading anyway.

Spending a lot of money must have been a lot of fun when it basically guaranteed you a champions league space. I can only think it's a matter of time before the bubble explodes. You have the likes of Arsenal and United wanting to sack their manager every 5 minutes without wanting to acknowledge the fact that they are just not as good as they were and thats with only Spurs and Leicester looking like they are going to muscle their way in. God knows what happens when eventually someone like Newcastle actually manage to join the financial elite as well.

I don't make the rules so can't really answer that- I agree in the long term you need the Premier League on board too. However, these do have to start somewhere, and my (probably naive) hope is that if the EFL start then the Premier League may follow at some point. It would certainly be in the best interest of the owners of clubs in the bottom half of the league who find themselves either having to take part in a ludicrous wage budget arms race (Benteke getting over £100k p/w at Palace for example) or doing what us, West Brom and Sheffield United have done, which is trying to compete with one arm tied behind your back.

From a more sporting perspective, I also think wage caps make for much more interesting and exciting leagues. It actually makes the game about who has the best coaches, the best scouting, the best tactics rather than who has the most cash to burn. 

[PurpleCanary 5,554]

15 minutes ago, king canary said:

Wage caps work fine in other sports.

We may be doing ok but the Championship as a whole is totally crazy and Championship wages are out of control and need to come down. The EFL has tried FFP, tried to trust clubs to be sensible and it doesn't work- wage caps are the only solution to actually making this happen.

The below graph is a clear indicator of the state of the issue...

Over 50% of the clubs are spending more on wages than they have in turnover. This is a receipe for absolute disaster.

The fact is, at some point, players such as those you listed probably need to adjust their wage expectations- clubs can't go on paying out more in wages than they make in a year. 

At a very rough calculation I think if you take out the promotion bonuses we spent 130 per cent of our £33m turnover on overall staff costs (which are the figures used for clubs in that chart), which seems on the high side for us, so I may have miscalculated.

The club's own figures for player wages, as opposed to those overall staff cost figures, have our player wages at 73 per cent of turnover before bonuses, so £24m, and 105 per cent of turnover, so £34m, with the bonuses.

That puts the bonuses at £10m, so our non-bonus overall staff costs come to £44m from that turnover of £33m,  hence my doubt over my own figures.🤓

[king canary 7,578]

20 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

At a very rough calculation I think if you take out the promotion bonuses we spent 130 per cent of our £33m turnover on overall staff costs (which are the figures used for clubs in that chart), which seems on the high side for us, so I may have miscalculated.

The club's own figures for player wages, as opposed to those overall staff cost figures, have our player wages at 73 per cent of turnover before bonuses, so £24m, and 105 per cent of turnover, so £34m, with the bonuses.

That puts the bonuses at £10m, so our non-bonus overall staff costs come to £44m from that turnover of £33m,  hence my doubt over my own figures.🤓

Yeah parachute payments and bonuses are a warping factor on these numbers. 

But even 73% isn't really sustainable for us without regular player sales. The £18m figure quoted is right in the sweet spot for us- not so low that we're held back from spending but not so high that we'd still be over a sustainable %. 

[Badger 2,405]

47 minutes ago, king canary said:

Wage caps work fine in other sports.

Genuine questions as I  do know - but does this happen in sports that

1. Have relegation and promotion

2. Sports where the majority of the team's finance comes from ticket sales and commercial activities?

We may be doing ok but the Championship as a whole is totally crazy and Championship wages are out of control and need to come down. The EFL has tried FFP, tried to trust clubs to be sensible and it doesn't work- wage caps are the only solution to actually making this happen.

FFP hasn't done that badly - I think it was beginning to have impact before Covid - you can only sell the ground once + some clubs have definitely "learned their lesson."

The below graph is a clear indicator of the state of the issue...

 

 

52 minutes ago, king canary said:

Over 50% of the clubs are spending more on wages than they have in turnover. This is a receipe for absolute disaster.

Agreed

The fact is, at some point, players such as those you listed probably need to adjust their wage expectations- clubs can't go on paying out more in wages than they make in a year. 

Agreed. 

I don't dispute the problem - buI am less certain that wage caps are the solution - it will change the struture of the game and imo probably lead to the end of the links between the Championship and the EPL. I suspect that we will end up with a permanent EPL or possibly an EPL1 and an EPL2, with the link with the rest of the EFL weakened. Neither is a good outcome imo.

FFP was flawed but a good start. Some sort of cap based upon ticket revenue + commercial activities would make most sense to me. 

[king canary 7,578]

2 minutes ago, Badger said:

 

I don't dispute the problem - buI am less certain that wage caps are the solution - it will change the struture of the game and imo probably lead to the end of the links between the Championship and the EPL. I suspect that we will end up with a permanent EPL or possibly an EPL1 and an EPL2, with the link with the rest of the EFL weakened. Neither is a good outcome imo.

FFP was flawed but a good start. Some sort of cap based upon ticket revenue + commercial activities would make most sense to me. 

Rugby Union has promotion and relegation and a salary cap but it seems that only applies to the top division. My knowledge of their revenue streams isn't great though. 

My dislike of including a % of revenue cap is that it doesn't actually address my wider issue with the game- ie the anti-competitive nature that money has in the game. One of the reasons I love watching the NFL is there is as much of an even playing as there can be. My team currently has the third most expensive roster in the league but is struggling because the coaching and scouting of those players has been poor and we can't just throw money at the issue to change it, while other teams who have planned better long term are doing much better than us. It means anyone, with a good couple of years roster building, can become competitive. 

[YellowYawner 6]

44 minutes ago, king canary said:

I don't make the rules so can't really answer that 

Thanks for the reply but it was largely rhetorical, I don't expect anyone can know what will be what but my worry is without wage caps coming in everywhere from day 1 it's just not going to work.

My only genuine question was in response to saying wage caps work in other sports. I agree they do, but I can't find a single example where they don't include the teams at the top.

I do agree with you that bringing in the salary cap to the championship will eventually pressure the premier league to do the same later but there could be a few years of turbulence inbetween.

Edited December 16, 2020 by YellowYawner

[king canary 7,578]

8 minutes ago, YellowYawner said:

Thanks for the reply but it was largely rhetorical, I don't expect anyone can know what will be what but my worry is without wage caps coming in everywhere from day 1 it's just not going to work.

My only genuine question was in response to saying wage caps work in other sports. I agree they do, but I can't find a single example where they don't include the teams at the top.

I do agree with you that bringing in the salary cap to the championship will eventually pressure the premier league to do the same later but there could be a few years of turbulence inbetween.

Yeah apologies that comment probably comes across as overly sarcastic which I didn't mean it to!

I think turbulence is probably required at some point- Covid seems to have given some clubs a wake up call that the current state of affairs can't continue but I generally feel the EFL and FA have done lots of tinkering around the edges with minimal impact.  

[Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man 3,777]

There's no solution that doesn't come with a massive problem.

Salary cap for the Championship: widen the gap between the top two tiers to the point that promoted clubs can't compete.

Salary cap for both the top two divisions: the clubs competing in Europe won't be able to attract top players and the quality takes a massive downturn for everyone as several European leagues overtake the Premier League and it loses TV income.

No salary cap: clubs continue to risk financial ruin and spend more than their turnover on wages.

Salary cap as percentage of turnover: the status quo remains and it will become really hard for any club to progress.

 

Probably the best solution would be a salary cap of sorts that comes from FIFA/UEFA, say £100m a year for everyone, with possibly a little extra for clubs competing in European competition. Even if it just reins in spending at the top level slightly, it would be a start and could possibly lead to a trickle down as time goes on.

Thank god I'm not in charge of finding a solution to this, because there isn't an obvious one.

[Badger 2,405]

10 minutes ago, king canary said:

Rugby Union has promotion and relegation and a salary cap but it seems that only applies to the top division. My knowledge of their revenue streams isn't great though. 

I can't claim expertise on other sports but I can't see how they would work in sports with promotion and relegation where the majority of the revenue comes from fans and commercial activities. 

My dislike of including a % of revenue cap is that it doesn't actually address my wider issue with the game- ie the anti-competitive nature that money has in the game. One of the reasons I love watching the NFL is there is as much of an even playing as there can be.

Again, I can't claim expertise on NFL as I never got into it, but my understanding is that it is largely a TV based game. Sure there are big attendances at a relatively small number of teams, but it is not a sport that has grown in the same way as football clubs have done from the community and with strong community links.

My team currently has the third most expensive roster in the league but is struggling because the coaching and scouting of those players has been poor and we can't just throw money at the issue to change it, while other teams who have planned better long term are doing much better than us. It means anyone, with a good couple of years roster building, can become competitive. 

One of the problems of having a salary cap in the Championship but not the premier league would that it would be even harder to build clubs and teams. Any player with talent and promise would be hoovered up as the wage gap between the Championship and the EPL grew ever wider.

I also think that the EPL is pretty competitive in case. 

So, I agree that something has to be done but a straight wage cap in my opinion is not the solution. I think that we run the danger of losing far more than we gain, when a gap based upon aspects of revenue would prevent the owrst aspects of the current system.

 

[king canary 7,578]

1 minute ago, Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man said:

There's no solution that doesn't come with a massive problem.

Salary cap for the Championship: widen the gap between the top two tiers to the point that promoted clubs can't compete.

Salary cap for both the top two divisions: the clubs competing in Europe won't be able to attract top players and the quality takes a massive downturn for everyone as several European leagues overtake the Premier League and it loses TV income.

No salary cap: clubs continue to risk financial ruin and spend more than their turnover on wages.

Salary cap as percentage of turnover: the status quo remains and it will become really hard for any club to progress.

 

Probably the best solution would be a salary cap of sorts that comes from FIFA/UEFA, say £100m a year for everyone, with possibly a little extra for clubs competing in European competition. Even if it just reins in spending at the top level slightly, it would be a start and could possibly lead to a trickle down as time goes on.

Thank god I'm not in charge of finding a solution to this, because there isn't an obvious one.

Yeah it isn't easy.

There is the old cliche of 'don't let perfect be the enemy of good' which I think applies in this instance.

I agree with what you say would be the best solution but also know it will likely never happen.

[Badger 2,405]

3 minutes ago, Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man said:

Probably the best solution would be a salary cap of sorts that comes from FIFA/UEFA, say £100m a year for everyone, with possibly a little extra for clubs competing in European competition. Even if it just reins in spending at the top level slightly, it would be a start and could possibly lead to a trickle down as time goes on.

I agree with the approach - if caps come in they will only really work without distorting the whole structure of football if ALL they apply to  clubs - however, I just can't see it happening: I can't see the EPL going along.

[Canary Wundaboy 1,358]

I'm convinced if the EPL introduced a wage limit the other major leagues would follow. It's not just football in this country that has a massive issue, just look at the state Barcalona are in. The German leagues are pretty much the only ones that seem to be able to limit the dangers and that's largely due to the fan ownership models and the fact that big-spending owners coming in are blocked.

Edited December 16, 2020 by Canary Wundaboy

[king canary 7,578]

3 minutes ago, Canary Wundaboy said:

I'm convinced if the EPL introduced a wage limit the other major leagues would follow. It's not just football in this country that has a massive issue, just look at the state Barcalona are in. The German leagues are pretty much the only ones that seem to be able to limit the dangers and that's largely due to the fan ownership models and the fact that big-spending owners coming in are blocked.

Yep, I'd like to think so.

The inevitable conclusion of the current wage arms race is more and more clubs like Man City and PSG, essentially owned as vehicles for wealthy nation states.