should a salary cap be introduced in soccer too?

No. The players are the ones who create by far the most value. Why should desk sitters have more money available to give to themselves?

This has been discussed before, too, but my answer is no.

It works pretty well in America, but you'd need to have the same cap for every league in Europe to keep the playing field level and I don't see who would have the power to organize that and why the European leagues would co-operate i.e. agree on it.

It would also be a nightmare to try to regulate it when rich clubs try to bypass the rules, like, "You sign for us and just maaaaaybe our shirt sponsor will start sponsoring you as an individual *wink wink*".

"Oh look, here's this mansion our club bought with the money we've saved from wages, want to rent it out, let's call it a fiver per month, eh? Feel free to use the Lada in the carage, and why don't you take my daughter out for a ride in it some time, here's her number."

A wage cap would also make the transfer market more boring as those clubs who have reached the cap couldn't sign players if they don't manage to sell some first.


What I do think would work and what is being implemented already is restrictions on by how much you, percentually, can raise your wages per season. I know it can actually be a hinderance on clubs who wish to grow quickly and have the money to do that, but at least it should help wage expenditure in general from increasing too fast and prevent those clubs from dropping too far behind who cannot grow their revenue as fast as some other clubs.

I dont know all the other sports and complications, but definitely a yes, simple fact is that these players earn way too much, too luxury...

BarcaLearning wrote:I dont know all the other sports and complications, but definitely a yes, simple fact is that these players earn way too much, too luxury...

I don't get this. So the people who sit at a desk should get the money?

Fuchsteufelswild wrote:

BarcaLearning wrote:I dont know all the other sports and complications, but definitely a yes, simple fact is that these players earn way too much, too luxury...

I don't get this. So the people who sit at a desk should get the money?

No one's suggesting the office workers at clubs should get a pay rise. Just that would a salary cap make for more unpredictable leagues.

Without reading other posts ere, i am all for it.

On second thoughts, i am still not sure why there is no transfer cap, would solve almost everything

Art Morte wrote:

Fuchsteufelswild wrote:

BarcaLearning wrote:I dont know all the other sports and complications, but definitely a yes, simple fact is that these players earn way too much, too luxury...

I don't get this. So the people who sit at a desk should get the money?

No one's suggesting the office workers at clubs should get a pay rise. Just that would a salary cap make for more unpredictable leagues.

Somebody is going to get the left over money. Is it going to be used for transfer or are the desk sitters going to give themselves pay raises? How is that determined?

mzamani wrote:On second thoughts, i am still not sure why there is no transfer cap, would solve almost everything

A transfer cap would hurt teams that develops a top quality player, is forced to sell them, but can't get equal returns and they end up leaving for nothing or very little. Could possibly make things less balanced.

Something should be done, but i don't think that would quite work. I think a wage cap would be more effective than a transfer cap in a hard cap solution scenario. but Im not sure that is best either.

Fuchsteufelswild wrote:

Art Morte wrote:

Fuchsteufelswild wrote:

I don't get this. So the people who sit at a desk should get the money?

No one's suggesting the office workers at clubs should get a pay rise. Just that would a salary cap make for more unpredictable leagues.

Somebody is going to get the left over money. Is it going to be used for transfer or are the desk sitters going to give themselves pay raises? How is that determined?

Well, like I said, dont know if it affects other things, but what I mean is just like those dirty bankers for example, or CEOs, to the extreme, I mean footballers work hard, but the amount some of them gets paid is like 100+ times what a normal player or person gets paid, its just not right, distance between the poor and the rich thing

BarcaLearning wrote:

Fuchsteufelswild wrote:

Art Morte wrote:

No one's suggesting the office workers at clubs should get a pay rise. Just that would a salary cap make for more unpredictable leagues.

Somebody is going to get the left over money. Is it going to be used for transfer or are the desk sitters going to give themselves pay raises? How is that determined?

Well, like I said, dont know if it affects other things, but what I mean is just like those dirty bankers for example, or CEOs, to the extreme, I mean footballers work hard, but the amount some of them gets paid is like 100+ times what a normal player or person gets paid, its just not right, distance between the poor and the rich thing

They sure make too much money. I just don't think the people who are not on the field deserve it any more than the players do. So if all it does is funnel the money into somebody else's pocket that I'm against it. I'd rather have players get the money.

I think they really should do something about the agents' wages. IMO they should decide that the players have to pay the agents from their income and not let the clubs pay for their fees. That way the players would be less inclined to go club hopping on their agents' behest as things look like nowadays.

Who would institute a salary cap? UEFA? If UEFA tried pulling that then we'll just end up with the ECA replacing UEFA because the clubs in the ECA would never agree to it. What should the cap be on, net income? If it's net income that's unfair to FA's in countries with higher taxes since some clubs have to pay more and if it's gross income then the same thing applies because the players don't earn that much; AS Monaco would become the most desired club in Europe. On top of that how do you deal with fluctuating currency rates?

Then there's a difference between privately owned clubs and supporter owned - the private owners would take the money for profit (which is the real reason for salary caps - cost-control/maximum profit) and the supporter owned clubs would use the money to improve the club, with the money going to improving the club facilities.

What about relegation-threatened clubs? Obviously the salary cap for lower leagues has to be lower so how do relegation battle clubs attract players without having release clauses in their contracts? Can you imagine the turmoil this creates for promoted/demoted teams?

If you want a salary cap to do what it's mythically supposed to do then you have to piss a lot of clubs off so what's to stop the clubs that disagree from forming their own associations? UEFA is already struggling to keep the ECA clubs from splitting off and this would push them so far off the edge.

National leagues will not implement caps since they are in competition with eachother because there's nothing to stop players from moving to an uncapped league.

A high salary cap would only "increase" competitiveness between the clubs that can afford to hit it, and thus you still have the same problem a salary cap is supposed to fix so what's the point?

The only time salary caps for Europe have come close to being discussed was in the context of stopping clubs from bankrupting themselves and that's what FFFP is supposed to do.

Salary caps work in the US because of the cartel-like nature of US sports. Trying to implement a salary cap in the free market of European football would create just as many if not more problems and not solve anything.

I'm surprised this discussion went on for two pages before someone pointed out these glaring problems.

So basically this is a thread of rich teams' fans saying the salary cap is worthless and poor teams' fans saying salary cap is the only way to bring back 'football'

Okay

More like two pages of tunnel-visioning a possible positive outcome of salary caps, completely ignoring the problems which make trying to implement a salary cap in Europe impossible.