I thought I would post my latest blog and find out what you thought of it, this is all about my idea of the wage cap and how it could work and my opinions on how it would make football much better. You can post what you think about it and anything you think would not work below. I am a big fan of the idea of a wage cap as I feel a lot of players are overpaid. If you look at the Premiership there is like a division between the bigger clubs like Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea and Co and team such as Wigan who pay much lower wages and Reading who are paying Championship standard. I think this is bad as it limits teams on who they can get because players are demanding big money and this needs to stop and I know that this may cause a lot of problem but if this don't happen there will be a lot of big clubs that will go bust in the future. I believe that there should be a cap at each level which starts in League 2 where the highest a club can pay is £3,000 a week this means that if a club is relegated they will have to reduce all the players wages and if the players are not happy then they will have to leave but this will stop clubs going out of business so easy as the wages will be much lower in football because if you look at clubs like Coventry in League 1 they are paying wages which are far too high and that is why they are in trouble. If there was a cap for each league it would be more of a level playing ground where teams can compete better and it would be much fairer as the team should be paying most of the players the same wage. I then think that the players in League 1 should be on a maximum wage of £5,000 a week as I know that this league is not too much different to League 2 as there is not a massive different between the financial gain in this league. This will mean that if a club does get relegated from this league there will not be too much of a drop in the wage and that there is a big chance that the club will still keep the player as it is still not a massive drop as they will still be on a decent wage, also if they are only an average player it may not be a good option to ask to leave as not many clubs will pay much more money than they are on. The championship is a big problem as a lot of clubs are paying a wage which was the average wage in the Premiership and this is where I use the example of Blackburn, Bolton and Leicester as they are all paying over £50,000 a week to some of the players at the club so I would put a wage cap of £10,000 a week in this league as this would stop clubs struggling as a lot of clubs canât compete at this level anymore as it is like a mini premiership, by having a tiered wage cap it will be much better than an overall one as this will not have much effect on the lower leagues and will only change the ways of the top 10 clubs in the Premiership which is not enough to stop clubs going out of business in my opinion as the FA need to be a lot more to stop this. I would then put a cap of £20,000 a week in the Premiership as this is a very high wage and they should not pay over this. I believe that only the best players should be paid this and by doing this there would be much more loyalty in football as players who get this wonât be able to get any more than this so they wonât be leaving for more money they would only leave when they want to actually go to another club. However I know that there are a few problems by doing this and one of them is that this needs to be put in place in many other countries because if it isnât then the standard of the English league will drop because all the best players will go to the clubs in other countries where they will pay more than this cap such as Russia, America, Italy, France, Germany and Spain as they will be offered more there and if they are in it more the money then they will leave. If this wage cap is not brought in throughout football then it will not work as it will deplete the English football leagues as clubs in England will not be able to attract the best players as they will not be able to afford them. The second problem that I have is that by having a wage cap will it reduce the number of people who want to become a football player? My answer is yes, I think that a lot of people may choose not to be a footballer as it does not pay as much once there is a wage cap as there are many that may be good at football but they want to become a footballer due to the money and lifestyle but in my opinion that will only do good things for football where players are on a level wage where people are paid fairly but not overpaid as this wage cap is still good in my opinion as they would still be highly paid but not as high as before as the highest paid player could still be on just over one million a year before tax so they will be taking home half a million a year and that is a great wage. If players are paid a lower wage they will work harder for the bonuses which I think should stay but the ones at the bigger clubs should be much lower than what they currently are as they should still reward players but not at such a high rate. Through paying a much lower wage players will want to work much harder for their clubs to get promoted as they know that they will get more if they are in the lower leagues and the players in the Premiership will work harder so that they get a bonus. The bonus structure should change and be fixed by the league so players in League 2 should get a £20 appearance bonus, £50 goal bonus and also a £50 bonus if their club is in the top 3 of the league. In League 1 the players should get a £40 appearance bonus, £90 goal bonus and a £100 bonus if their club is in the top 2 each. In the championship the players should get a £50 appearance bonus, £150 goal bonus and a £200 bonus if they are in the top 2 and also a £100 bonus if they are in the playoff places. In the premiership they should be paid £100 appearance bonus, £250 goal bonus, £500 bonus if they are top of the league, £200 bonus if they are 2nd 3rd or 4th and a £100 bonus if they are 5th. This bonus should be given after each match to the players who played in the match and at the end of the season the player of the year should get a set bonus which should be £10,000 for a league 2 player, £15,000 for a league 1 player, £25,000 for a championship player and £50,000 for a Premiership player. By doing this the players will work much harder to get the bonuses which means that the club will get the most out of their players as they will compete against each other to get the bonus. The final thing that I think the clubs should do is pay their youth players more because at the moment they only pay them £55 per week if they are on a youth contract and or under 17 years old, this is not good enough and is very poor, I think that if they are a League 2 youth player they should be on at least £150 per week, if they are a League 1 youth player then it should be a minimum of £250 per week, if they are Championship youth player it should be £350 per week and for Premiership youth players it should be a minimum of £500 per week as they are underpaid and some clubs play them quite often and this means that they are seriously under paid as there are clubs that mainly have young players so that the wage bill is really low. I think that as a way of rewarding these young players for their work they should get a decent appearance bonus aswell which will get them to work very hard to get a place in the team, if they play in League 2 they should get a £500 first appearance bonus and £200 a match after that, for League 1 it should be the same and for the Championship and Premiership it should be £1,000 for the first match and £500 for all the matches after that while they are on a youth contract as this is a way of rewarding them for hard work and also an incentive to work harder. I think to get the most out of them over the year there should be a good youth bonus aswell for youth player of the year and this should be as followed; for league 2 it should be £2,000 bonus, for league 1 it should be £3,000 for the Championship it should be £5,000 and for the Premiership it should be £10,000 as this will get them working hard as they know that this would be a great bonus and is a lot of money to them. I think that by doing all this football would be much better and also it could have an impact on the price of match tickets because if the expenses are lower than they were before the cap then that would mean that the club could reduce what they charge and then everyone will be happy as this mean that more people will be able to afford to go to matches.
That could work for League One and Two but not higher. There's too many pressures from foreign leagues for them to be restricted to not be restricted, as especially to as small as £20,000. The quality of the football in the Prem would be severly affected. If there were ever to be a wage cap for the Premier League which is highly doubtful whilst Abramovich and Sheikh Mansour are still club owners, It would still only be capped at something like £150,000 a week. Its still far too much but when clubs overseas such as PSG, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich etc have the funds to offer higher wages, a lot of the quality players we see in the Premier League today would leave. Media coverage would decrease causing them to give less funding into clubs, clubs revenues would go down and will have to come up with other marketing methods to stay afloat. Unfortunately it would be a massive downspiral causing perhaps more teams to enter administration. The benefits would be that a lot of more homegrown players would be able to break through which would be great for our national teams, but again it would only be a matter of time when they would be looking for a bigger move overseas. Unless the wage cap was brought to every major football league in the world, the system would be very flawed if it was to happen in England.
Yeah I would not want it to affect our leagues so it is important that some way or another that there is an international cap so that all leagues are capped.
If it were possible to stop people like SKY from paying huge amounts for television rights, then there would not be the sort of money that currently exists. Clubs would not be able to give the current astronomical wages. They would be unable to generate the revenue from ticket and merchandise sales to cover £200,000 + per week that some players get. Any wage cap would have to be linked STRICTLY to the revenue from matchday ticket sales to have any chance of working. Clubs then would not ( should not ) be able to use income streams from other sources to pay any more wages.
That would be a better option but again would still not be fair on all clubs. If you are looking at the Premier League again, ManUre manage to get 75,000 at Old Trafford. The amount of revenue they receive from matchday tickets, food, beverages etc would still be far greater then a team like QPR that can only get say 19,000 through the doors at Loftus Road. I think what Hoadie would want to propose would be where all of the teams would have an even playing field and so clubs still wouldn't be able to spend more on players because of the revenue. If that sort of thing were to happen then Speedway would be a good example to look at. Every team in the Elite League can only have a 42 point average for their team. Better riders have a higher point average than lower riders. They therefore have to be able to budget in either a very good rider and 6 not so good riders OR try and have 3-5 decent riders and only two lower riders.
We need to get rid of the TV monopoly and force out the armchair fans, which might go part way to solving the wage problem. While we also need to give football back to the community at an affordable price rather than a player price. Sadly whether it be alcohol, tobacco, football, safe standing, affordability, etc, none of this fits with successive government agendas, which most come under an umbrella in some way disguised as 'family' or 'health & safety'. Successive government policies have destroyed the male social environment and a subsequent course of events that have even priced the 'families' out of the game, so you will only have left your prawn sandwich brigade. Wage caps? Football has far bigger and reaching issues, best to start looking at the very top and start working your way down.
