retired_kpr

There used to be a wage cap on football until the '60s, and the UK wasn't a communist state then. I'm not sure how much the law has changed since then or whether it'd be feasible to make the same move in reverse, but it's a concept that's been accepted and workable before.

As for your other point - the relationship between a football club and its fans is different to the relationship between a normal company (like the one I work for) and its customers. A lot of the directors are fans themselves and you do get acts of generosity that don't necessarily make business sense. Haven't Wigan and other clubs reduced or frozen ticket prices in the last couple of years as a result of higher than expected earnings in the Premier League? You can't say for certainthat massively reducing the wage bill would have no effect on ticket prices whatsoever.

retired_kpr

As for the points I made at the start of the post, I don't necessarily totally agree with the sentiments behind them (don't buy into the 'overpaid prima donnas' thing and don't mind the large number of foreigners in the Premiership), but what's for certain is that a lot of people are bothered about it.

retired_kevh16

The teams who have frozen their ticket prices are the ones who have been struggling to sell out.

retired_swtpe14

when you got the best in a league with no other upper leagues to go up to then you are always going to have a gap.

It makes the premiership better. It improves the quality of the play.

And is it wages the problem? Theres a kind of "brand" thing. Kids are more and more likely to pick one of these big teams as a team they'll support. As a consequence, when they turn into players they want to play there, and simularly players abroad want to play there. How about the other teams who wants to play there?- even if they do do well.

Salary caps would be interesting as they're used in rugby and also one American sport- Baseball is it? Would never be enforcable here as players would just go abroad. And a worldwide wage cap is very idealistic, it would never exist in my view.

retired_jsnap

A set cap per player is not possible, but a total wage bill capped at 50% of turnover would be a lot more enforceable.

That way clubs don't spend outside their means, but the big clubs with big turnovers can still maintain their position.

If anyone overspends then they get fined, as with the luxury tax in baseball.

retired_google

Actually baseball is the one American sport WITHOUT a salary cap.

The NFL, NHL and MLS have a hard cap where you get to spend up to 'X' on the squad and that's it (includes bonuses as well; MLS is a little different where "Beckham rule" players don't count totally against the cap, but there is a set charge against the cap)

The NBA has a soft cap where there are a number of exceptions you can use to manage the cap.

retired_Pantora

the main thing thats wrong with football is the huge amounts of money teams can get from one season in the premiership through silly TV deals meaning sides are so desperate to reach the top flight they risk the future of their club and hence managers are under more pressure leading to such a huge number of sackings in the championship

Ok the lower leagues have just agreed a new deal with sky and BBC but i's tiny compared to the top flight TV money which means one season at the top if financialy set up carefully can set the club up for years, Derby will make 30 million in TV revenue this season despite being hoplessly out of their depth and if they've got any sense will accept relegation and save the TV money instead of spending big in the janaury window

also the parachute payments should be removed, teams relegated from the premiership get 11.5 million in parachute payments for 2 seaons which means they can get 23 million in 2 years from playing in the championship while other teams in the division make less than a tenth of that despite playing in the same division. Keep doing it and it just will end up to it being impossible for smaller sides to reach the premiership and will end up with around 25 sides allternating for the premiership slots with the sides getting promoted from the championship being near always the teams that come dwon from the premiership the year after

retired_nini59

There used to be a wage cap on football until the '60s, and the UK wasn't a communist state then. I'm not sure how much the law has changed since then or whether it'd be feasible to make the same move in reverse, but it's a concept that's been accepted and workable before.

As for your other point - the relationship between a football club and its fans is different to the relationship between a normal company (like the one I work for) and its customers. A lot of the directors are fans themselves and you do get acts of generosity that don't necessarily make business sense. Haven't Wigan and other clubs reduced or frozen ticket prices in the last couple of years as a result of higher than expected earnings in the Premier League? You can't say for certainthat massively reducing the wage bill would have no effect on ticket prices whatsoever. </BLOCKQUOTE>

Wigan have frozen ticket prices because they aren't selling tickets, it's that simple, if they were selling out Wigan would be the first club to double their prices. There's the occasional gesture of goodwill, but you do get them in business too tbh.

retired_Fit

It's ridiculous and even if someone stupidly mentions something like this it's generally a percentage of turnover as the 'cap' as opposed to to some random number.

I dont begrudge players getting a fair piece of the money pie as opposed to men in suits, Plcs but maybe, just maybe, they could occasionally kick something down to the guy watching it, the ticket buy and make them cheaper. Not all the time, it's their cash cow but from time to time, away game, cups, etc. I'd prefer that

retired_rinkjustice

It would seem to me that limiting wages to a percentage of turnover would only affect the solvency of clubs:

The bigger clubs will always be allowed to spend more than smaller clubs, smaller clubs are barred from going beyond their cap - which only increases the probability that they will sell the better players to the clubs that can afford them.

The gap between leagues and countries will stay just about the same due to the above or possibly increase.

Part of the problem that would develop is that the top leagues have a significant international fan-base as well as a fairly large and comparatively wealthy subset of supporters.


Ticket prices won't come down unless demand falls, so I guess if you make the sport less popular - that's one way to lower prices. Besides, they are always going to maximize revenue from the ticket prices - especially under a theoretical regime where their wage cap (and therefore theoretical league mobility) is linked to their turnover.