Salary Cap | Page 2 | Vital Football

Salary Cap

This will get very messy.

The one thing the EFL should have done was consult the players union first and include them in the decision. Maybe they did, and PFA blocked it so they went ahead anyway. Anyone know?


I wonder what the legal solutions to this are in football codes and countries where there is a cap.

I think every code here in Oz is played under salary cap rules and the competitions seem better for it.
 
Salary caps exist in sports around the world and operate without much fuss. Spending early from now on carries the very real risk that your club will be penalised, the cap is in force.
 
I can’t really see how it can be legally challenged.
Any player under an existing contract will not be penalised. That contract will be honoured.
I can understand the PFA anger if they were not consulted, be don’t think that they have a legal argument.
 
The EFL is a membership based competition. One of the rules is clubs needs to vote for changes such as this, which they have done so.

I don't see why the EFL would lose a legal challenge.
 
Charlton fans don’t seem so pleased with it.
I quote
This will stop huge clubs like us and Sunderland buying our way out of the division.
That’s totally unfair.

It seems that their wage bill is in the realms of 6 to 8 million.
 
Fair point but I can't think of any other business where the competition dictates how much a competitor spends in wages.Don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with the idea .it is just that I can't see it ever getting past a judge.i am certain there will be a legal challenge.

It works well in N/American sports.
 
Salary Cap is not only sensible, it will save clubs at L1 & L2 level and also at Championship when it inevitably takes effect at that level. Well done to the EFL and clubs who voted for it - the existence of several clubs has likely been recently hinged to a need for radical change - and this is it !
 
It works well in N/American sports.
Why do people keep saying it works well? Based on what? It's incredibly complex, rookie players are underpaid for years, and the top players (i.e. NFL quarterbacks) are paid considerably more than premiership footballers. What is it that works well?
 
Why do people keep saying it works well? Based on what? It's incredibly complex, rookie players are underpaid for years, and the top players (i.e. NFL quarterbacks) are paid considerably more than premiership footballers. What is it that works well?

As agreed for Leagues One and Two it is incredibly simple. Are rookie players paid so vfery well in lower division football? Is there any evidenv€ce that they will not be paid well once experienced? The maximum wage lasted for decades and outlasted its usefulness but it worked as well as the current set up.

The biggest losers in a wage cap scenario are the agents and middle men, who currently siphon off millions for little visible benefit. Our level of football will simply die if changes are not made to allow for a lower cost base. We won't pay significantly more so overall salaries ned to reduce. We are not talking of Ronaldo & Messi here but what used to be known as journeymen professionals.Some have received absurdly high salaries given their ability.
 
Why do people keep saying it works well? Based on what? It's incredibly complex, rookie players are underpaid for years, and the top players (i.e. NFL quarterbacks) are paid considerably more than premiership footballers. What is it that works well?

Don`t know much at all about the NFL but I do follow, very closely, the NHL. You`re right to allude to the complexity involved in that, when it comes to running an NHL team, the acquisition, trading and retention of players is dependent on applying various aspects of balancing salary cap issues, pretty much the main core of a transaction.

To try and explain the finer details would take a while, you could look them up on the web if you like. You`d possibly find the whole concept very alien, but the bottom line is this : The NHL is a league with 31 teams (soon to be 32) and the Cap has been instrumental in ensuring Parity. With Parity you get a more exciting framework as the TV companies can be sure that whichever teams are playing it`s never going to be a walk-over and either team is capable of winning the game. As with soccer here, the biggest influence on the game in America are the TV companies - they`re happy because they have a League which has engineered parity.

Every team is subject to the salary cap ( which is regularly reviewed) and the process is transparent. You could select any NHL player right now and view that player`s contracted salary, including bonuses and also other aspects, such as clauses which restrict the number of clubs a player is willing to be traded to. So there`s a lot of juggling to be done but as there is a transparent process, it works.

With regard to rookie players, now that too is a completely different kettle of fish and totally alien to our sports methodology. In North American ice hockey, at all levels, (and ages) the hockey framework exists as an infra-structure that fits one basic model. There are drafting procedures that run through and dovetail the entire network.

The easy way to think about it is to imagine that the NHL owns the entire world stock of ice hockey players. Each year the NHL has an Entry Draft which basically allows each of the 31 clubs seven picks over seven rounds (total of 7 picks). An NHL club could pick Johnny Smith of the Medway Knights from England as their first round pick. Whether or not Johhny ever gets to play in the NHL is another thing but the NHL team that picked him owns his rights to play in the NHL - no other team can sign him (after time there are exceptions, I wont go into that). So team building is a long long affair in the NHL and because of the order of the Draft selection, a team which finishes the regular season in a low spot, quite fairly, gets high picks in each of the seven rounds. (You can trade draft picks, but I wont go into that either).

In essence, due to the salary cap, which is transparent and enforced by the powerful controlling body of the NHL, you don`t end up with a league where three or four of the "richest teams/richest owners" get to sign the best players - it can`t happen. If a team wants a star player from another team, they`d have to trade away a lot in return. And the governing body, with an eye on fairness and parity, can prevent a deal if it so decides.

So what works is that, each and every year, you have a league (which is the best in the world) with a level of parity present that ensures a competitive product, not just in relation to the most famous teams, but for every team and every team`s television market.

It`s not an overnight switch - for football here it will be a lengthy process because to engineer a parity comfortable framework the governing body has steer the way. And for UK that would ultimately be EUFA and/or FIFA.

I`ve been around the NHL for long enough to say that it works - honestly. Whilst the subject of money might be a distraction to the fan simply wanting to watch a sporting match up, when you become more familiar with the Cap it actually adds a very interesting dimension - it`s why millions in America tune in to watch the Entry Drafts take place in all four of the major sports.

Sorry this has been a long entry, it is, as you suggest, complex but it`s worthwhile. There will be far better, more concise summaries (with better brevity) if you look on the inter-net.
 
Lancs, AFL here in Oz works in a very similar way.

Strict salary cap rules and a draft system to get youngsters. The lowest teams get the first picks.

These two aspects pretty much ensure that every team over a period of time can have success. Teams that are currently struggling will get better players in for the future. Teams doing well will find their own players have more currency (are better) and may have to be offloaded to keep their wage bill down.

I think just about every one of the 18 teams has had some sort of success over the past 20-30 years. But also the clubs with the best culture, facilities, coaching etc can have a few more repeated successes.

I think it works a lot better than the football model of team with richest owner (nearly always) wins.

The thing is, it needs a strong central governing body, and a list of clubs that are willing to adhere to the common good, not just their own needs.

I don’t think English football has those things.
 
Why do people keep saying it works well? Based on what? It's incredibly complex, rookie players are underpaid for years, and the top players (i.e. NFL quarterbacks) are paid considerably more than premiership footballers. What is it that works well?
I think that what a squad salary cap does is it allows the team to reward star players while keeping a regulated lid on ridiculous wages for average players.
Example, Wayne Rooney (in his heyday) was worth every penny of what Man Utd paid him.
He was the star and would often win them a match.
Then we have a player like Wes Brown, who was getting 60k a week.
I rest my case.
 
The question remains why would a club like Sunderland want or need to have the same wage bill as Accrington?It is clubs that are likely to challenge this not individual players .
It is a bit like saying all transfer fees should be the same .All football clubs should have the same attendances. While I totally get why it is better for competition in a division it will widen the gap between each division and make the football league less competitive between leagues. There is a gulf already.
 
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Lancs, AFL here in Oz works in a very similar way.

Strict salary cap rules and a draft system to get youngsters. The lowest teams get the first picks.
A draft system, like in the US. People are told what team (and city / town) they work at, and seemingly how much they can earn. I just don't think that is going to work in a sport where the participants can play in a wide number of countries and leagues
 
A draft system, like in the US. People are told what team (and city / town) they work at, and seemingly how much they can earn. I just don't think that is going to work in a sport where the participants can play in a wide number of countries and leagues

I was just about to post saying something along those lines myself.

I get the arguments about levelling up the competition, and making things more interesting. From the point of view of the players, though, unless I'm misunderstanding things, they've basically got no say in where they end up playing (to start with at least, I don't know whether once they're more established they get more of a choice?). What's the interest for them in being told "You've got to go and play for Swindon" (for example)? And that's without taking into account the issue ThreeSixes mentions of the number of different leagues/countries available to them, something which I would imagine isn't necessarily the case (certainly not to the same extent) with sports such as NFL, NHL, etc., where those sports aren't played in as many countries.

The other thing I don't understand is that such a system appears to be rewarding failure. Is there not a risk that near the end of the season, once a team realises they have no chance of winning anything, they'll decide to lose all their remaining matches to finish as low as possible in order to have a better pick in the following season's draft?

I say all of that as someone with absolutely zero knowledge of American (or Australian) sports. Maybe there's a perfectly valid reason why the above aren't really an issue, if that's the case, feel free to put me right.
 
The question remains why would a club like Sunderland want or need to have the same wage bill as Accrington?It is clubs that are likely to challenge this not individual players .
It is a bit like saying all transfer fees should be the same .All football clubs should have the same attendances. While I totally get why it is better for competition in a division it will widen the gap between each division and make the football league less competitive between leagues. There is a gulf already.
You may have misunderstood Chris.
It’s the clubs that have voted for this.
It hasn’t been imposed by the EFL.
It’s the player’s union that is opposing it.
If they want to waste their members fees in a court case that’s up to them.
Basically it means that clubs in the same division are limited to what they are allowed to spend in players wages.
They can spend what they want on other things.
Just say for example, we sold Tucker next week for 5 million.
That would give our club security of knowing that the wage bill would be covered for a couple of years.
It should massively encourage clubs to grow players as under 21s don’t count.
A team can have a nucleus of established pros on decent wages with a back up of youngsters.
It should stop the likes of Sunderland paying one player the equivalent of their opponents squad.
I’d call that fairer and should also stop clubs overspending and going into admin.