League One Salary Cap

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Nads

Nads

Well-Known Member
Jan 25, 2011
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South Shields.. Home be SR6
Seems to have slipped under the radar this, but there’s a proposal, that appears quite far down the line, to set a £2.5million salary cap for League One.

Now, this is actually a massive potential drama for us as a club, surely?

The size of the club, crowds and income, would become absolutely immaterial, no player of an ‘Above League One’ standard would be attainable at that level, surely?

If you had a player on 10k a week (we have players at that level I believe, correct me if I’m wrong on what we know from accounts), that’s 20% of your total budget gone.

It isn’t in an FFP income scale, it’s flat. It means anyone in League One when implemented is going to be in massive trouble if they go up, and wish to stay up.

We have to finish this season and pray we fluke our way up if this is to come in.
 
Nacho said:
If it's applied to every league and it decimates the current richest club wins situation in the premier league then I can live with it, if it's just league one then wtf.
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League One and 2 only.

Obviously due to the use of furlough, do the maths, 20 man squad, £2.5million a year equates to a salary of £2,400 week.

They couldn’t ask the Premier League to do it, they’d have to vote for it themselves. It’s an EFL move.
 
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It's a ****ing stupid idea. Firstly they'd need to phase it in, because as you mention some clubs (including us) will already have players on a lot of money and they can't just say "tough **** lads you're over budget".

But it's also stupid because they're saying they need it in order to ensure clubs can survive financially. That already exists! The SCMP thing they've got in league one already limits wages as a percentage of turnover. If clubs stick to that, and if the EFL actually check it and punish offenders, then there shouldn't be an issue. Why introduce a new thing when there's already an existing mechanism?

The existing mechanism is in place and it's a lot more fair. If the concern is clubs spending more than they can afford then, quite obviously, you need to consider their turnover. If we get ten times more money than Rochdale then why shouldn't we be allowed to spend twice as much on wages should we so wish?

It would also kill the standard of the league because any half decent player would likely rather sit on the bench in the championship rather than having a low wage in this league. It means anyone going up to the championship would likely be at a massive disadvantage straight away (and again, if you drop down how long do you get before you have to comply, they can't expect it immediately).

Like so many changes, or proposed changes, in football it seems **** and would make things worse.
 
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Guinness Guzzler said:
It's a ****ing stupid idea. Firstly they'd need to phase it in, because as you mention some clubs (including us) will already have players on a lot of money and they can't just say "tough **** lads you're over budget".

But it's also stupid because they're saying they need it in order to ensure clubs can survive financially. That already exists! The SCMP thing they've got in league one already limits wages as a percentage of turnover. If clubs stick to that, and if the EFL actually check it and punish offenders, then there shouldn't be an issue. Why introduce a new thing when there's already an existing mechanism?

The existing mechanism is in place and it's a lot more fair. If the concern is clubs spending more than they can afford then, quite obviously, you need to consider their turnover. If we get ten times more money than Rochdale then why shouldn't we be allowed to spend twice as much on wages should we so wish?

It would also kill the standard of the league because any half decent player would likely rather sit on the bench in the championship rather than having a low wage in this league. It means anyone going up to the championship would likely be at a massive disadvantage straight away (and again, if you drop down how long do you get before you have to comply, they can't expect it immediately).

Like so many changes, or proposed changes, in football it seems **** and would make things worse.
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The big kicker is that they ‘expect it to be in place for 20/21 season’.

We’d be ****ed. We’d be releasing the squad and playing a youth team to comply.
 
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Guinness Guzzler said:
It's a ****ing stupid idea. Firstly they'd need to phase it in, because as you mention some clubs (including us) will already have players on a lot of money and they can't just say "tough **** lads you're over budget".

But it's also stupid because they're saying they need it in order to ensure clubs can survive financially. That already exists! The SCMP thing they've got in league one already limits wages as a percentage of turnover. If clubs stick to that, and if the EFL actually check it and punish offenders, then there shouldn't be an issue. Why introduce a new thing when there's already an existing mechanism?

The existing mechanism is in place and it's a lot more fair. If the concern is clubs spending more than they can afford then, quite obviously, you need to consider their turnover. If we get ten times more money than Rochdale then why shouldn't we be allowed to spend twice as much on wages should we so wish?

It would also kill the standard of the league because any half decent player would likely rather sit on the bench in the championship rather than having a low wage in this league. It means anyone going up to the championship would likely be at a massive disadvantage straight away (and again, if you drop down how long do you get before you have to comply, they can't expect it immediately).

Like so many changes, or proposed changes, in football it seems **** and would make things worse.
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Nail hit firmly and squarely on the head GG. Completely agree. It would utterly screw us that's for certain.
 
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Nads said:
The concern with owners like we have, there’d be money piling up from gate receipts and sponsorships going straight in their pockets.
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Spot on, that's another major reason why I don't like salary caps. Let's say they introduced salary caps in the PL where most clubs make profit, and let's say that every club finds they're £10m over the cap. What are they going to do when the players eventually have to accept lower contracts which see them meet the cap? Are they going to go to Sky and ask them to pay less for the rights? Of course not. Maybe a club with 30,000 season card holders will knock £300 off every ticket? Will they ****! They won't give it to charity /community initiatives. Nope, it'll be straight into the pocket of the owners and shareholders. Now, for me, although I think the money in the game is sickening, if anyone is going to benefit from it I'd rather it was the players who have to train and perform and risk injury every week, rather than some investors. There is a need to safeguard clubs, but that can be done without an inflexible cap.
 
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On the flip side, the additional income not being spent on player wages could go towards a bigger transfer budget to buy a better player. In a salary cap era players could either earn 50k week to sit on the bench of a Man Utd, City, Spurs etc and toss there career away or go to another team on the same wage and actually play football and try to help that team improve and climb the league... It may not completely level out the playing field but it would go a long way, otherwise we're never gonna see anyone else at the top of the Premier League other than the usual suspects and that's beyond tedious now.
 
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Gatesy said:
On the flip side, the additional income not being spent on player wages could go towards a bigger transfer budget to buy a better player. In a salary cap era players could either earn 50k week to sit on the bench of a Man Utd, City, Spurs etc and toss there career away or go to another team on the same wage and actually play football and try to help that team improve and climb the league... It may not completely level out the playing field but it would go a long way, otherwise we're never gonna see anyone else at the top of the Premier League other than the usual suspects and that's beyond tedious now.
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It will never be signed of for the Premier League.

If they did, Serie A or La Liga would just say ‘we ain’t doing that’ and the PL is suddenly back behind them as an attraction.

The PL is too big to consider that compromise.

It could work if you came through League One with a salary cap you’d be in a great position to spend when you went up.
 
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£2.5 million seems low for League 1 when the salary cap for Premiership Rugby is £7 million.
To put that into perspective (and these figures might not be quite accurate) total League 1 attendance in 2018-19 was 4.8 million and total Premiership Rugby attendance was 1.98 million in 2018-19. Obviously sponsorship deals might be different but the figure still seems too low to me. And that's without considering all of the other problems that it would cause.
 
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The Norton Cat said:
£2.5 million seems low for League 1 when the salary cap for Premiership Rugby is £7 million.
To put that into perspective (and these figures might not be quite accurate) total League 1 attendance in 2018-19 was 4.8 million and total Premiership Rugby attendance was 1.98 million in 2018-19. Obviously sponsorship deals might be different but the figure still seems too low to me. And that's without considering all of the other problems that it would cause.
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Yeah I noted them, and thought the same. Top level rugby isn’t near as profitable as even third tier football. £7million seems more realistic, smaller clubs still wouldn’t spend it but then club with higher income would have the ability to bring in a couple on bigger deals.

League One likely loved having us, Portsmouth, Ipswich and Coventry until this.

Now the clubs are far too big for the proposals and are going to be a real opposition to them getting it done.
 
Just bumping this as it seems that we’ve forgot about it and over the last couple of weeks it has affected us in signing at least 2 players we know of, I thought the pfa did not accept this and had taking it to adjudication. Has anyone heard anything of any dates to be decided yes or no or has it been universally accepted by clubs and the pfa.
 
I just can’t see legally how it’s possible. “Ok so you make more money than fleetwood, Wimbledon and Oxford combined but you are only allowed to pay your players the same as they get”

Imagine running a business where a higher company says “even though you cleared 20m last year and the other company your competing with bade 2, your staff can only be paid the same as them”

mots trying to bake it fair to the little clubs but, fir done reason, only in ours and the division below. Another load of **** from the EFL who seemingly couldn’t give a damn what happens on the lower leagues.
 
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marcusblackcat said:
I just can’t see legally how it’s possible. “Ok so you make more money than fleetwood, Wimbledon and Oxford combined but you are only allowed to pay your players the same as they get”

Imagine running a business where a higher company says “even though you cleared 20m last year and the other company your competing with bade 2, your staff can only be paid the same as them”

mots trying to bake it fair to the little clubs but, fir done reason, only in ours and the division below. Another load of **** from the EFL who seemingly couldn’t give a damn what happens on the lower leagues.
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The knackers in the EFL and leagues 1 and 2 have screwed themselves.
National League sides can hoover up talent and have superior squads than League 2 sides and the same with relegated Championship teams and League 1.
Any manager in League 1 trying to build a squad to challenge will have trouble holding on to players.
 
The arbitration that the pfa were talking about has gone really quiet, has the EFL paid them off to shut them up
 
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