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?ú930,000,000 to be Champions...

Not really; that would just reinforce the status quo. In fact it would make things worse. United would be able to spend ?ú165m a year on wages (actually MORE than they did last season), whilst Wigan would only be able to spend ?ú25m on wages (they spent ?ú40m last season). Limiting one team's wages to 15% of another team's wages in the same league is not a solution to the disparity that we currently see.

Ok, what about minimum wage?

They're not the brightest bunch
 
Not really; that would just reinforce the status quo. In fact it would make things worse. United would be able to spend ?ú165m a year on wages (actually MORE than they did last season), whilst Wigan would only be able to spend ?ú25m on wages (they spent ?ú40m last season). Limiting one team's wages to 15% of another team's wages in the same league is not a solution to the disparity that we currently see.

OK....flat cap? ?ú100 million maximum?
 
Ok, what about minimum wage?

They're not the brightest bunch

It is extraordinary how the history of how the game used to be run in this country has been lost so readily. What about returning to the regulations that served the game since well since the beginning of professionalism up until the early 80s/premier league, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel with wage caps, spending caps etc?
 
No need for a wage cap/salary limit/etc, football has never been fair and to some extent, shouldn't be. Why should Wigan have access to the same spend capability as Manure/Spurs/Pool/etc.?

It's not about making a level playing field, it's about #1, protecting the business model and stopping clubs from running themselves into oblivion by trying to keep up with the Joneses, #2 protecting clubs that are being run legitimately from unfair business practices.

In theory the fair play idea is good, execution is wrong. They need to simplify the income that counts, e.g. Spend as a % of gates/tv revenue might be a better solution than as a % of total revenue (too easy to sneak in bogus money contributions via sponsorship, fake sales/etc.)

And enforce brutally with real consequences.
 
In theory the fair play idea is good, execution is wrong. They need to simplify the income that counts, e.g. Spend as a % of gates/tv revenue might be a better solution than as a % of total revenue (too easy to sneak in bogus money contributions via sponsorship, fake sales/etc.)

And enforce brutally with real consequences.

that's the best solution ive heard - although no doubt it would lead to more clubs itching to break away from the current tv deal in england where everyone gets a slice of the pie
 
No need for a wage cap/salary limit/etc, football has never been fair and to some extent, shouldn't be. Why should Wigan have access to the same spend capability as Manure/Spurs/Pool/etc.?

Don't think anyone is saying it should be like that, ie a complete level playing field. But I think you have to have at least some redistribution of income, rather than all this percentage of income stuff, otherwise the trend towards the richer clubs getting richer and the poor getting poorer will continue. Albeit more slowly than it does now. However, people for some reason baulk at the idea of this. I largely blame a culture change in (British) society at large, frankly. It is no coincidence that the change in football happened at the same time. It is hyper individualised and there is a huge sense of entitlement. Even the riots are like this now. No political content. It is all about what you can loot from the shops.

I mean, seriously, football became so attractive because it was so competitive and unpredictable. This has been largely destroyed. You could get a bit of luck with a special manager, lets say Derby County and Clough, and you could win the 2nd division and the 1st in successive years. Or even going back further, Arthur Rowe and Tottenham. No chance of that now. It is seen as amazing when a newly promoted club finishes top half in its first season

The FA in the early days mandated for gate receipts being shared between the two clubs, a levy on all receipts being shared, the maximum wage, strict regulations for directors etc because they feared the big city clubs, with the huge potential support they had in their catchment areas, would end up coming to dominate and would ruin the game. And guess what? They were right!
 
No need for a wage cap/salary limit/etc, football has never been fair and to some extent, shouldn't be. Why should Wigan have access to the same spend capability as Manure/Spurs/Pool/etc.?

It's not about making a level playing field, it's about #1, protecting the business model and stopping clubs from running themselves into oblivion by trying to keep up with the Joneses, #2 protecting clubs that are being run legitimately from unfair business practices.

In theory the fair play idea is good, execution is wrong. They need to simplify the income that counts, e.g. Spend as a % of gates/tv revenue might be a better solution than as a % of total revenue (too easy to sneak in bogus money contributions via sponsorship, fake sales/etc.)

And enforce brutally with real consequences.

I agree with Harry Perkins; it's the EXTENT of the disparity that has got out of control, primarily (or even almost solely) down to the Champions League. Football may not have ever been fair*, but it's certainly the least fair it has ever been at the moment!

* By fair, I assume we're referring here to the money that each club has available.
 
OK....flat cap? ?ú100 million maximum?

I agree with this. It works in American sports, you don't get the same teams dominating every year. Obviously the smart teams who know how to work the system stay close to the top most years, and the teams who run their clubs (or franchises I should say) poorly, well they get poor results.
 
I agree with this. It works in American sports, you don't get the same teams dominating every year. Obviously the smart teams who know how to work the system stay close to the top most years, and the teams who run their clubs (or franchises I should say) poorly, well they get poor results.

They also equally share out all the TV money, IIRC. Which again is very different to our hugely lopsided income distribution system.
 
They also equally share out all the TV money, IIRC. Which again is very different to our hugely lopsided income distribution system.

Yeah well it's never going to be perfect as Man United for example are a massive club compared to the likes of Wigan when it comes to revenue and fanbase. But at least you would go some way to making to playing field a little more equal if there was a spending limit/wage cap.
 
The problem of trying to adopt an "American System" is they can do that because they are the only ones playing their sport.

Flat/shared out/overly equal distribution would simply disadvantage English teams in Europe (and please don't suggest you could come up with an idea that all the major European Leagues would agree on, if you do, I have a planet to sell you).

What is accomplishable is targeting what is in fact unfair market/business practice, hence spend needs to be tied to real income (my idea above)
 
The problem of trying to adopt an "American System" is they can do that because they are the only ones playing their sport.

Flat/shared out/overly equal distribution would simply disadvantage English teams in Europe (and please don't suggest you could come up with an idea that all the major European Leagues would agree on, if you do, I have a planet to sell you).

What is accomplishable is targeting what is in fact unfair market/business practice, hence spend needs to be tied to real income (my idea above)

But we wouldn't have to bring down United, Arsenal and co down to the level of Aston Villa or Wigan or something. Just bring them down CLOSER to those teams below them in the PL.

Spurs have shown you can have CL success without huge amounts of money, and City and United have shown that you can fail when you do have loads of money.
 
I would argue that ALL Champions League money should get distributed 100% equally between the 20 PL teams (and maybe even some for the lower divisions.

So the rest of the PL get massively rewarded for not qualifying? And the clubs that do qualify get, in effect, penalised, having to incur all the costs of competing, paying players to play, travel, admin etc?

Nah, don't think so.
 
So the rest of the PL get massively rewarded for not qualifying? And the clubs that do qualify get, in effect, penalised, having to incur all the costs of competing, paying players to play, travel, admin etc?

Nah, don't think so.

Well personally I don't think there's any need to reward teams financially for qualifying for the CL. Playing in it should be reward enough. And furthermore, the fact that the rewards are so significant has created a two-tier system between the CL teams and the non-CL teams. It's made things uncompetitive (though Spurs have done very well to break this system, and City have done so by getting a billionnaire owner). Plus, each PL team would only be getting about ?ú8m each (assuming that the 4 CL teams make about ?ú40m on average from playing in the competition) - hardly getting rewarded massively.

As for your second point, I doubt that the costs of playing in the CL are very significant! In any case, they could just be given enough of the CL money to cover those costs, with the rest being divided equally.

Do you think the current system is okay, where the PL teams' revenue distribution looks like this: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ar278ojCb...imS6kD8/s1600/10+Liverpool+Revenue+League.jpg ?
 
They also equally share out all the TV money, IIRC. Which again is very different to our hugely lopsided income distribution system.


To be fair a large portion of it is ditributed equally then there is more depending on your final position in the league but I think the way its done is reasonably fair at the moment.

Compare that to Spain where Madrid and Barca get something like 50-60% of all tv revenue and the remainder is split between the other 18 clubs. Or Italy where until this season they all negotiated their own tv rights deals, where would that leave say Wigan etc if the same thing happened here?
 
I wonder what the odds are on a breakaway - elite league consisting of the continents top teams to circumvent fair play restrictions
 
Do you think the current system is okay, where the PL teams' revenue distribution looks like this: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ar278ojCb...imS6kD8/s1600/10+Liverpool+Revenue+League.jpg ?

That model, if you took out the sugar daddy money would be acceptable to some extent, to a great extent, fanbase/stadium size (number of people who give a brick about the club) is in line with that income. The issue is clubs like City will be competing with Real Madrid via nothing that has to do with draw/fanbase/history/anything other than money dumping.

We have with good fiscal management been able to claw ourselves up from midtable mediocrity to European regular. Why we will not be able to take the further step and compete for the league is because Emirates Marketing Project has spent 930M, Cheat$ki spends 50M on a single player, not because Manure/Arsenal get better gate/tv revenue.
 
I wonder what the odds are on a breakaway - elite league consisting of the continents top teams to circumvent fair play restrictions

I don't think it will have anything to do with fair play issues, a lot of people here are living in a dream world, beyond City, Barca would not land in that model, UEFA is NEVER going to do anything against it's top tier clubs.

I could see a super league where Barca/Real/Manure/etc go for negociating their own tv rights deals globally and see if they can significantly get better revenue. If you look at statistics re income over the last decade, gate reciepts go up single or lower double digit amounts, tv rights almost double each 3-4 years.

So instead of sharing domestic league revenue, they could create their own league and negociate their own slice.
 
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