author: Darren Ennis
source: Reuters
date: 23 January 2009
editing: fcbtransfers.blogspot.com
Manchester City’s failed 100 million euros plus bid for AC Milan’s Kaka now begs the question: should there be a limit on the amount of money a club can pay for a player or should there be a salary cap?
Some of Europe’s top soccer clubs and the game’s European governing body UEFA seem to think so, with the news that they have started talks on curbing the amount of money that can be spent on player transfers or wages.
Sources familiar with the discussions have told Reuters that the European Club Association (ECA) — which represents the continent’s leading clubs such as Manchester United and AC Milan — has proposed clubs should only be allowed to spend around 51 percent of their revenue on transfers or salaries.
Under the ECA proposal, revenue would be determined as money received only from ticket sales, sponsorship, merchandise and television income. It would not include any financial investment by owners or major shareholders. Any money from shareholders, or billionaire owners, would be invested into the infrastructure of the club, such as building or renovating the stadium or investing in youth development such as an academy, the sources said.
But, there are concerns that smaller clubs who cannot accumulate large revenues from ticket and television sales may suffer from the ECA proposal. The English Premier League is likely to oppose such a move which would in effect take away a lot of the incentive for these rich owners to invest in a club.
read the full and original article here
read an opinion on the proposal: Radical proposal will just make rich men richer
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Wednesday 28 January 2009
Proposal to limit spending on transfers and salaries
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7 comments:
how stupid is that?
any investment could be disguised as sponsoring. if they want to cap it they'll have to set absolute values.
interesting point
That sound like more as a conspiracy than a plan, I wonder why didn't they think about it before when those same clubs were enjoying an advantage over the rest financially. Beside, what is this?:
"clubs should only be allowed to spend around 51 percent of their revenue on transfers or salaries."
Clubs who are already in CL will always have more money to spend than those who are not, meaning there will be no place for the middle to low clubs to have an ambition to build a more competitive team, because the accomplished ones will always have an edge.
I think with all the financial problems most of the clubs having, hate it or like it but they are actually in need for new investments to pomp more cash in the body of the game. And even though the new Manchester City owners are acting crazy, but we need to admit they have a more solid base financially than those who bought Man UTD, Liverpool, Or Chelsea with the aim to invest in it now and get enough return later to clear their personal or business debts.
They may have money, but as Kaka proved, if a player don't want to move, then they cannot buy him even if HIS OWN CLUB felt its a fair deal.
Ramzi makes a good point. Plus salary caps only rarely work. The NFL salary cap, by way of example, is a joke with a million work-arounds. It does keep lawywers employed, however.
It's also shutting the barn door after the horse has gone. After 30, 40 and 50 million transfers, and Aulas demanding 60 million for Benzema, why not 100 million?
Citeh is scary because they have more money than God, from a bottomless supply. They could change the structure for wage and transfer fees, which scares the crap out of the other teams.
On the other hand, why the heck would anyone go to Citeh, except for money? Gigi Buffon's comment re: that Kaka business was funny, and on, so apt.
But this smacks of the UEFA residency requirement, as well. When people starting grumbling about Arsenal not starting any English players, similar things began to come up.
Two responses:
1. This is clearly a ploy by the establishment clubs (annual CL contenders) to keep a potential Chelsea (or even a Man City) from emerging due to a sudden influx of foreign capital
2. Kxevin, you might call the NFL salary cap a joke, but it does make for the highest parity among any professional league in the world (that I know of). not that i support a salary cap, but i don't think the nfl one is the best example to bash
Citizen, I think that the NFL has parity despite the salary cap, because of player quality being spread throughout the league, so that teams such as Dallas can't "buy" a championship.
MLB (baseball) has a similar situation, with teams like the Yankees, who always have an astronomical payroll, but don't win championships. In fact this season, IIRC, the championship went to the team with the lowest payroll in the majors.
I'm with you on not supporting a salary cap.
But Kxevin, the thing is in baseball you can pick a large bunch of teams and pretty much know that they're not going to be competitive for a few years. You can't really do that in football (with the exception of the Lions...).
I guess the salary cap has more to do with keeping the bottom-feeders changing than actually making the dominant teams different from year to year...
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