UEFA threatens caps on wages, foreign players

johnos

http://bohsnews.crispynews.com/article/show/4735

Mega-money is destroying big-league football. No money is destroying Irish football.

county

is this legal though?not imo

Necronomicon

Era, these rumors do the rounds every few months.

Bacchus

A wage cap is an excellent idea. A club is a hard enough thing to finance without players demanding excessive wages. Also, with only the top teams in Europe being able to afford the best players it leaves other clubs falling further behind the pack. Bringing in a structured wage system could really help bring a good balance back into football. I could take a while to see an effect but in time I think this would help smaller clubs attract better players. Obviously, the best players will want to play for the best clubs but at least this way other clubs have a chance of competing. A transfer cap would be another good step I think.
I'm sure people will point out some of the many flaws in this kind of system but the way things are now, the rich are getting richer and the poor haven't a hope of getting near them. A wage cap could help bridge the gap and could save clubs from falling into major debt due to expensive players.

evad_lhorg

they did this in the NHL in america and this was the frist season with it. very good plan and it makes for more even games because teams cant have all the star players but that takes away some of the fun ya know? you wanna watch Milan or Barca and see the best of the best playin together.

arbeitsscheuer

county wrote:

is this legal though?not imo

Damn straight it's not legal. Can't believe this story still has any clout left to make the rounds tbh. Workable, but illegal.

Chardee MacDennis

evad_lhorg wrote:

the best of the best

This is Top Gun....

Chucky the tree

SebtheBum wrote:

Damn straight it's not legal. Can't believe this story still has any clout left to make the rounds tbh. Workable, but illegal.

How come it works in Rugby union then?

PHB

Individual wage caps are utterly illegal and will be shot down.

What I assume this article is talkign about, and if it's not it should be, is team wage caps.
A team can only spend so much on their players. This means you can pay Ballack 130k a year, but it's gona mean one less ****e player.
This also encourages youth development, cause their wages tend to be cheaper.

mchurl

evad_lhorg wrote:

tvery good plan and it makes for more even games because teams cant have all the star players but that takes away some of the fun ya know? you wanna watch Milan or Barca and see the best of the best playin together.

I agree totally, it isnt a bad idea in principle, but we'd all miss seeing the best players playing together.

BOHSBOHS

have SQUAD wage caps like they do in american sports .....

redspider

Yes, its illegal to put a wage cap on an individual employee, at least within the EU. However, it is not illegal for Uefa to put a Team Salary Cap as a pre-requisite to getting a Uefa licence. Clubs and indeed players are free to enter Uefa-endorsed competitions or not. The EU courts however may have an opinion that Uefa and national associations have a de-facto monopoly, so that could muddy the water somewhat.

Players, Clubs, the rich clubs (such as G14) and football associations, national (FAI, EFA) and international (Uefa, FIFA), are all vying to get as much of the pie as they can. There are several power struggles going on. Clubs 'own' the players, and that is affecting international football for example where they currently play for 'free'.

Abramovich's wealth and 'bling spending' on Chelsea is accelerating the need to think about money control's on clubs. Real Madrid and Man Utd were bad enough but Abramovich's illegally-gathered horde of wealth has brought it to a whole new dimension.

I dont know how its going to work out. Power struggles can lead to splits. If Chelsea increase their domination, say by winning 4 trophies in a season and including the CL, and say they do it again, that will precipitate some type of change, unless Abramovich gets kidnapped or gets a slug in his head or indeed there is a change in government in Russia, although even that is now too late to damage him as his wealth is now liquid and taken out in the main from Russian-based assets.

Its a funny old game ....

redspider

Jimboo_Jones

redspider wrote:

Abramovich's illegally-gathered horde of wealth

has it been proved that he got his wealth illegally?

I also do not think that you would be able to enforce a team wage cap based on the % of a teams income. I would imagin that it would lead to players getting more benifits off the book and teams suddenly claiming some dodgy income streams to boost what they could claim their renevue is.

johnos

I think the report's authors would have considered the legality or otherwise of their recommendations.
And I wouldn't imagine that a crackdown on agents would be politically or legally impossible.
I suppose the main thrust of the report is to take the money and marketing fever out of the game, which imho would be no bad thing.

growler

redspider wrote:

.

Abramovich's wealth and 'bling spending' on Chelsea is accelerating the need to think about money control's on clubs. Real Madrid and Man Utd were bad enough but Abramovich's illegally-gathered horde of wealth has brought it to a whole new dimension.

I dont know how its going to work out. Power struggles can lead to splits. If Chelsea increase their domination, say by winning 4 trophies in a season and including the CL, and say they do it again, that will precipitate some type of change, unless Abramovich gets kidnapped or gets a slug in his head or indeed there is a change in government in Russia, although even that is now too late to damage him as his wealth is now liquid and taken out in the main from Russian-based assets.

redspider

I'm looking forward to chelsea winning 4 cups , as many as possible for the forseeable future.

It wasn't a problem when Utd, Liverpool, Blackburn, Arsenal , Barcelona, Madrid, Juve were doing it so I have no problem with it now, tough.

Your personal hatred of RA and your unsubstantiated inferences of criminality is comical.

Pointless debate, illegal to restrict workers' wages, end of.

growler

johnos wrote:

And I wouldn't imagine that a crackdown on agents would be politically or legally impossible.
I suppose the main thrust of the report is to take the money and marketing fever out of the game, which imho would be no bad thing.

Cracking down on agents is pretty impossible since their place in football is so entrenched and players need agents to manage them as most of them aren't educted enough to negotiate on their own behalf. It would be like banning consultants or barristers and insisting that everyone looked after themselves, unworkable and unfair.

Taking the money and marketing out of football would be a good thing you reckon? What then would pay the wages, allow stadia to be developed, encourage more people to watch and play the game, the less money thats involved the fewer clubs could afford to play professionally, develop youth teams, support womens football, hundreds of clubs in the UK would go bust without sponsorship revenues, tv money, promotion rewards, if you were to rely solely on the revenues from tickets and merchandising sales no club would be able to maintain its current squad and very few would be able to play a professional game.

redspider

Jimboo_Jones wrote:

has it been proved that he got his wealth illegally?
I also do not think that you would be able to enforce a team wage cap based on the % of a teams income. I would imagin that it would lead to players getting more benifits off the book and teams suddenly claiming some dodgy income streams to boost what they could claim their renevue is.

It has not been proven in any court of law that Abramovich has done anything wrong. However, every dog in the street in Russia knows his situation.

I agree, I also think a salary cap should not be a percentage of income/turnover, as this would favour the bigger clubs. An absolute value should be set, but getting agreement among the clubs would/will be hard. What would suit the G14, eg: 75 m or something as a 'cap' would be immaterial to other clubs. I and I'm sure many fans that want to see the sport more competitive and on a more level playing feild would probably like to see something much lower, perhaps set at 25m or so. Uefa would have to set it, no easy task given that the G14 could set-up their own leagues 'at any time'.

I also think that squad sizes should be limited, for example, to 25 registered players per club.

You are right about the players getting benefits 'off the books'. The Italian clubs have been at it for years, and no doubt others, and that will continue, its just a case of whether the tax and other authorities can nab them at it.

Its up to individual clubs to decide if they will do things according to the rules and legally. If they dont, then they should be liable to face very tough sanctions, such as bannings from competition, relegation down a couple of divisions, etc.

If there is a deterrent and if the rules are reasonable, Uefa could change things gradually for the better. But I expect a long slow road and no guarantee of success. The current situation is far from satisfactory and many within the game think it is close to approaching intolerable.

The struggles will continue ....

redspider

growler

Jimboo_Jones wrote:

has it been proved that he got his wealth illegally?

.

redspider wouldn't let a little thing like proof get in the way of his delight at Chelsea winning the league (twice)

Jimboo_Jones

redspider wrote:

no easy task given that the G14 could set-up their own leagues 'at any time'.

Fine, let them go and create their own American style league. Can not stand the arrogance that the G14 and some of their supporters show towards the rest of football.

redspider wrote:

I also think that squad sizes should be limited, for example, to 25 registered players per club.

The limit of squads is quite interesting though - as this could be very easily enforced.

John_C

growler wrote:

Taking the money and marketing out of football would be a good thing you reckon? What then would pay the wages, allow stadia to be developed, encourage more people to watch and play the game, the less money thats involved the fewer clubs could afford to play professionally, develop youth teams, support womens football, hundreds of clubs in the UK would go bust without sponsorship revenues, tv money, promotion rewards, if you were to rely solely on the revenues from tickets and merchandising sales no club would be able to maintain its current squad and very few would be able to play a professional game.

It's not being proposed that all money be taken out of football. It's proposed that the wages of the top players be capped so that they get less of the money and the other things you have listed get more of it.

johnos

growler wrote:

Taking the money and marketing out of football would be a good thing you reckon? What then would pay the wages, allow stadia to be developed, encourage more people to watch and play the game, the less money thats involved the fewer clubs could afford to play professionally, develop youth teams, support womens football, hundreds of clubs in the UK would go bust without sponsorship revenues, tv money, promotion rewards, if you were to rely solely on the revenues from tickets and merchandising sales no club would be able to maintain its current squad and very few would be able to play a professional game.

Of course it is a truism to say that nothing would function without some money. I meant taking the dynamic of excessive money and marketing hype out of the 'top' echelon football, and by implication having more to spread around.
I think it goes down to the philosophical question as to whether you think football is a business or has a function outside of that.

Kingp35

First of all growler wake up. 20 years ago there was none of these marketing machine that surrounds football now and "hundreds of clubs in the UK" were not going bust. Ill tell you, wages were no where near as high as they are now.

Its illegal to put a salary cap on an individual so its pretty obvious thats not what is being discussed, its whether there should be a Salary cap on a team and I think there should. The bigger clubs are talking all the money and hurting the rest of football. Other clubs dont stand a chance and tbh the Premiership is just plain boring because of Chelsea. Also look at Scotland where you had Celtic and Rangers dominating year after year because they had the money. Only this season have Hearts challenged after they were taken over and money pumped into the club. Without money clubs dont stand a chance and it all comes down to transfers and wages. Limiting wages would either limit the amont of over paid footballers you could have or bring the average wage of a footballer down.

A salary for teams is a great idea imo

growler

Kingp35 wrote:

First of all growler wake up. 20 years ago there was none of these marketing machine that surrounds football now and "hundreds of clubs in the UK" were not going bust. Ill tell you, wages were no where near as high as they are now.

Its illegal to put a salary cap on an individual so its pretty obvious thats not what is being discussed, its whether there should be a Salary cap on a team and I think there should. The bigger clubs are talking all the money and hurting the rest of football. Other clubs dont stand a chance and tbh the Premiership is just plain boring because of Chelsea. Also look at Scotland where you had Celtic and Rangers dominating year after year because they had the money. Only this season have Hearts challenged after they were taken over and money pumped into the club. Without money clubs dont stand a chance and it all comes down to transfers and wages. Limiting wages would either limit the amont of over paid footballers you could have or bring the average wage of a footballer down.

A salary for teams is a great idea imo

sorry I don't have the stats or resources to look into how wages in professional clubs have kept pace with inflation over the years, crowds were typically a lot bigger before all seater stadia were introduced.

I disagree that the Prem is boring because of Chelsea, I didn't hear the same voices moaning when it was Man U, Arse, Liverpool dominating so I have no time for such arguments now. Do you not think the scottish league is better off having a 3rd contender ?

There are pros and cons for a wage cap, but it isn't really practical, renegotiation of contracts for everyone would be illegal / unworkable I think (I know I wouldn't be too happy if my boss came along and said ..wage cut..sorry Dave) . You run the risk of driving European talent out to markets where they can make more money. You risk an influx of (relatively) cheap talent from Africa / Asia / S. America. If you cap wages players will (if they have any op on) side step it by contractually demanding a larger cut of transfer fees (more than they already do) so the money will still be needed to pay for them. Players will demand longer contracts so clubs will have to keep players on the books and benches.

Kingp35

growler wrote:

I disagree that the Prem is boring because of Chelsea, I didn't hear the same voices moaning when it was Man U, Arse, Liverpool dominating so I have no time for such arguments now. Do you not think the scottish league is better off having a 3rd contender ?

Sorry maybe I didnt say what I meant. Chelsea are too far ahead of the other teams in PL. The league was pretty much a fore gone conclusin by Christmas this season and they won it by a mile last season as well. When Man U or Arsenal or whatever were winning leagues at least there was a title run in and it remained close. Sure I remember the days Leeds were top of the league at christmas, at least teh league was still open. Thats what I meant by boring with Chelsea dominating. The fight for fourth and the relegation battle were the best things about the PL this year.

johnos

growler wrote:

I disagree that the Prem is boring because of Chelsea, I didn't hear the same voices moaning when it was Man U, Arse, Liverpool dominating so I have no time for such arguments now. Do you not think the scottish league is better off having a 3rd contender ?

It's not a matter of whether the English Premiership is boring. It's a question of how much damage the top-heavy system is causing across the spectrum of football, in England, Scotland and elsewhere.
But, since you ask, I though the Scottish league was just a little more interesting.

PHB

I disagree that the Prem is boring because of Chelsea, I didn't hear the same voices moaning when it was Man U, Arse, Liverpool dominating so I have no time for such arguments now

Suprising that.
United Liverpool and Arsenal all dominated in ways which other clubs could achieve. Any club could do what United did.
Chelsea domiante by a suger daddy, nobody can match them unless they also get a suger daddy. It's a totally different situation.