Premier League clubs vote to introduce spending controls

Premier League clubs have voted to introduce spending controls including financial fair play and restrictions on salary increases, West Ham's co-owner David Gold has confirmed.

Full details of the agreement will be announced by the Premier League later on Thursday, but Gold said that the proposals for controls had received the backing of the majority of top-flight chairmen.

He said: "We have all voted and it was overwhelmingly supported, not by all the clubs – some are a little concerned – but the vast majority of the clubs voted in favour."

The proposals, worked up at successive meetings of the 20 clubs, are intended to ensure the new £3bn domestic TV deal does not translate directly into increased wages.

There were two proposals on the table, one based on Uefa's Financial Fair Play break-even rules and the other designed to curb wage inflation.

Speaking before the meeting, the Chelsea chief executive, Ron Gourlay, said it would be "illogical" for the clubs not to take action.

"We have geared ourselves up for the financial regulatory structure now in place in Europe and would like to think that we could develop an appropriate set of financial stability regulations to apply to all Premier League clubs," he said.

"Everyone at the club is working hard to comply with the rules and we will participate positively in the Premier League's forthcoming meetings."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/feb/07/premier-league-clubs-spending-controls?CMP=twt_gu

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Thoughts?

Good.

Well I think it'll keep the like of Chelsea and Manchester clubs from going too far ahead of everyone else, which is always good.

Meh we will still not win anything

Good for massive clubs like Swansea though

Bad idea.

Teams should be able to use their finances however they like.

Messiah "Aggerswagger" wrote:Well I think it'll keep the like of Chelsea and Manchester clubs from going too far ahead of everyone else, which is always good.

Think you've got it backwards mate...Its the Manchesters, Arsenals, Chelseas who WANT this kind of thing, because it limits upward-mobility of lower clubs

None of the the established "big" clubs want things like what happened to Chelsea, Man City, or QPR to keep happening, because it threatens their standing in the leagues power-structure...

Thats what I think, at least

We was top 4 consistently before some poor decision making and clubs had huge money boosts

So what Bhends says is true things like this will stop the likes of City and Chelsea happening again all too often but will make the likes of Arsenal, Yanited, Liverpool etc etc stronger.

And the rest will probably stay the same.

Its a shame what money has done to this league, before it was very unpredictable for the most part and teams on the outside could break the top 4 but now it seems almost impossible.

Settling for getting to a cup final as about as good as the rest can expect and i don't see that changing.

I'm sure without money teams can still finish in the top 4 every season, making it predictable.

It is expected that proposals to limit a club’s losses to £105 million over a three-year period

might as well not bother at all, f*cking joke as always.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:

It is expected that proposals to limit a club’s losses to £105 million over a three-year period

might as well not bother at all, f*cking joke as always.

If that's the criteria then only City, Liverpool & Chelsea have sustained losses that big over the last 3 years.

The proposals, worked up at successive meetings of the 20 clubs, are intended to ensure the new £3bn domestic TV deal does not translate directly into increased wages.

So of what i'm understanding,they're just saying that the benefits of the new TV deal wouldnt take immediate effect but would more of impact in the long run ?

I am speaking purely on the basis of this new TV deal anyways because there's so much stupid hype over it and there are some fans acting like their clubs get an additional 50m transfer budget.

Good decision, clubs like Dortmund show that it can work without the big money.

Surag wrote:

The proposals, worked up at successive meetings of the 20 clubs, are intended to ensure the new £3bn domestic TV deal does not translate directly into increased wages.

So of what i'm understanding,they're just saying that the benefits of the new TV deal wouldnt take immediate effect but would more of impact in the long run ?

I am speaking purely on the basis of this new TV deal anyways because there's so much stupid hype over it and there are some fans acting like their clubs get an additional 50m transfer budget.

The main issue is that they don't want the players (or their agents, more specifically) to say "Oh theres a new 3 billion TV deal so the players should all be getting raises" - i.e the players should be getting a piece of that money

Whether thats fair or not depends on who you are. Some might argue the players are the ones who put on the show, so they deserve the increased wages. Meanwhile, others would say its the clubs are the foundation of the league, they deserve more of the money so they can grow, they will be around far longer than the players...

Surag wrote:

The proposals, worked up at successive meetings of the 20 clubs, are intended to ensure the new £3bn domestic TV deal does not translate directly into increased wages.

So of what i'm understanding,they're just saying that the benefits of the new TV deal wouldnt take immediate effect but would more of impact in the long run ?

I am speaking purely on the basis of this new TV deal anyways because there's so much stupid hype over it and there are some fans acting like their clubs get an additional 50m transfer budget.

That was before the Premier League decided to restrict how much of the tv money can be used in the short term.

It will still have a big impact you have to be very naive to think otherwise.

At least its being discussed unlike a certain league

It's more a preservation of what we currently have. Let's be honest, a £105mil cap over three seasons isn't going to stop the usual suspects dishing out £20mil plus on a player or spending up to £50mil in one window and in a lot of cases that's all it takes to get a space or maintain a space in the Champions League spots. The rule isn't going to level the playing field, so to speak.

Realistically, there is no rule the league could implement that could make competition fairer. What creates such a big gap between clubs is the amount of money a team can get just be appearing in the Champions League. However, I think the gap needs to be stricter because there isn't a single club who has made more than £105mil in losses over the last three seasons.

If they put it to around 50m over 3 seasons i might feel a little bit more comfortable.

As it stands it seems a bit of a waste of time and quite frankly smacks of trying to get the irresponsible clubs on side.

But having said that i never expected the league to ever do that right thing.

It could work in smaller PL clubs' favour in some scenarios. If the richest clubs have already reached their spending limit within these rules, they cannot go and buy the latest emerging player from a smaller club, not straight away, anyway.

Also if you think that a Big Club used to make 20m losses annually prior to these rules and a Small Club 5m losses and under these new rules the loss-making limit was 10m, it would mean that the Big Club has to tone down their spending by 10m while the Small Club can keep spending just as much as they used to. (I don't know what the limits will in the end be, though).

Bhends mentioned the argument that players are the content and their share should increase if the overall revenue increases, but I think wages have come too far for that to work. Tickets are probably too expensive and clubs are making losses, it's not in the balance.

There probably won't be a new Chelsea or Manc City, but I don't know can you say that's a negative thing. There's something like the big 6 or 7 in the Premier League right now, but imagine if it was the big 15? You might as well have a closed league for them and let every other club in England (and Wales) play in a separate system.

GoonerJay29 wrote:
However, I think the gap needs to be stricter because there isn't a single club who has made more than £105mil in losses over the last three seasons.

City and Chelsea both have

City and Chelsea both have

Neither of those two need to spend anywhere near as much to maintain their current positions, though. You'd be surprised by how little a club need to spend on transfers to actually maintain a Champions League spot; once you've got a core group of good players in place, you only need to buy two or three players to compliment it and it doesn't take £105mil over three seasons to do that.

The league's aim is to curb absurd spending, but the new cap isn't going to do a lot to accomplish that. The current rich clubs could quite comfortably pay out big fees and salaries for players, safe in the knowledge that they're going to get insane amounts of money from the Champions League and new domestic TV deal.

I'm struggling to see what the new rules accomplish other than ensuring that no more sugar-daddies come into the league. Okay, that's great, but the damage has been done on that front, as far as I'm concerned.

As long as they don't introduce a stupid salary cap system like the NBA or the NFL then it's all good.

GoonerJay29 wrote:

City and Chelsea both have

Neither of those two need to spend anywhere near as much to maintain their current positions, though. You'd be surprised by how little a club need to spend on transfers to actually maintain a Champions League spot; once you've got a core group of good players in place, you only need to buy two or three players to compliment it and it doesn't take £105mil over three seasons to do that.

The league's aim is to curb absurd spending, but the new cap isn't going to do a lot to accomplish that. The current rich clubs could quite comfortably pay out big fees and salaries for players, safe in the knowledge that they're going to get insane amounts of money from the Champions League and new domestic TV deal.

I'm struggling to see what the new rules accomplish other than ensuring that no more sugar-daddies come into the league. Okay, that's great, but the damage has been done on that front, as far as I'm concerned.

Liverpool did as well, due to mismanagement by the previous owners. If nothing else, this change will at least help to prevent such situations from arising again.

Also, according to BBC: Reading abstained; and it's being reported that Fulham, WBA, Man City, Villa, Swansea and Southampton all voted against the proposed change.

Is it the rich teams fault the poor teams are poor? TV deals etc?

GoonerJay29 wrote:

City and Chelsea both have

Neither of those two need to spend anywhere near as much to maintain their current positions, though. You'd be surprised by how little a club need to spend on transfers to actually maintain a Champions League spot; once you've got a core group of good players in place, you only need to buy two or three players to compliment it and it doesn't take £105mil over three seasons to do that.

The league's aim is to curb absurd spending, but the new cap isn't going to do a lot to accomplish that. The current rich clubs could quite comfortably pay out big fees and salaries for players, safe in the knowledge that they're going to get insane amounts of money from the Champions League and new domestic TV deal.

I'm struggling to see what the new rules accomplish other than ensuring that no more sugar-daddies come into the league. Okay, that's great, but the damage has been done on that front, as far as I'm concerned.

Chelsea have made losses in excess of £105m in three year periods probably ever since Abramovich bought them and City are on course to do the same. So I think the £105m / 3 years gap will have some effect. Also it should help in preventing clubs doing a Portsmouth - like QPR are clearly in danger of doing now.

What I don't quite understand about that £105m loss-making gap for three year periods is that in UEFA's Financial Fair Play rules the same three year gap is first just £36m and then £24m. Why leave the difference so vast? It will offer tiny consolation if a club stays under the Premier League's gap, finishes in top-4 but has accumulated losses over UEFA's limit and isn't granted a license to participate in the Champions League. Unless the clubs know already that UEFA won't be so strict about their rules.

Yohan Modric wrote:Is it the rich teams fault the poor teams are poor? TV deals etc?

No, it's not. Money is the necessary evil - although personally I don't think it's evil at all in football. You can't have the world's most popular spectator sport in the 21th century without it making lots of money. If you want unpredictability above all else, you need to follow a league where there's not much money. But power (or revenue-making) differences are just natural in top flight football and as long as TV monies are distributed (nearly) evenly within a league, I think it's just fine and natural that those clubs who can, will make more money from commercial deals and from ticket sales. You might still get the occasional fairytale, like Swansea v Bradford in the League Cup final.

While I'm typing away here, I will say one more thing:
What I would personally like to see, though, is more money flowing down to the lower divisions from the Premier League. The Premier league is continuing getting richer than the Championship and lower divisions from there. The larger that gap becomes, the greater the risk of getting a nearly-closed group of clubs of, say, 30-40 teams which are the only ones you will see in the Premier League over a period of 10, 20 years or something like that. Just making it into the PL once will earn you so much cash that you'll be in a fairly advantageous position in the Championship for a few years even if you get relegated from the Premier League. It wouldn't hurt for the Premier League to hold £2m of TV money from each club and distribute those £40m evenly between the 72 football league clubs. That'd be £550.000 per a football league club and would already help especially the smaller clubs down there.