Salary cap wouldn’t work in football

May 15 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

TEN Premier League winners medals now sit proudly on Alex Ferguson’s mantlepiece and I guess that few people, apart from the odd Arsenal and Chelsea fan, would bet too heavily against that haul being added to next season.

The Wigan Athletic chairman, the enigmatic Dave Whelan, said that everyone in the game expects one of the ‘big four’ to lift the Premier League trophy next season – in itself, no surprise – and that the only sure way of at least trying to level the playing field is for the TV monies generated by the Premier League to be evenly distributed amongst all the competing clubs.

If this was done, according to Mr Whelan’s argument, there would be a chance of breaking the top four clubs’ stranglehold on the competition.

The supporters of the other clubs would then feel they had something serious to play for and an element of real opportunity would be brought to give greater life and vigour to a competition which is beginning to look more and more like a battle between a few elite clubs.

It’s a nice idea that has about as much chance of happening as there is of sushi replacing the meat and potato pie as the meal of choice in Wigan households.

The problem with his argument, which has a good deal of superficial appeal, is that it would not deliver what its advocates promise.

The vast gulf in buying power between the big, rich clubs and the rest of the game is not solely determined by the distribution of TV monies, important though they are.

Every game played at the Emirates Stadium generates another £3million to Arsenal’s bank balance. The 76,000 fans at Old Trafford mean that United continue to make more and more money and stay ahead of the pack. And there is Mr Abramovich, who will continue to ensure that Chelsea stay in touch with the big boys through the power of his chequebook.

Any reforms in the way TV monies are distributed is a piece of populist window dressing without putting a restriction on how much clubs can spend on their players’ wages. In other words, the only sure way of creating that ‘level playing field’ is to introduce an effective and well-policed salary cap.

I doubt very much whether this will happen, or even whether it could happen.

The TV monies generated by the Premier League competition are vast, the revenues of the big clubs now rival those of significant businesses in the ‘real economy’ and there is no sign of any diminution in the popularity of the game itself and its central part in our national sporting life.

A salary cap that worked in the UK would have no force in Italy or Spain, and it would not be long before the most talented players went elsewhere to maximise their earnings.

In Australian and British rugby league there is a salary cap, and an even distribution of TV monies as well.

But this is part of a franchise type system, in which there is no relegation from those two countries’ respective top level competition, the NRL and the Super League.

I can never see the drama and excitement of the promotion/relegation battle being surrendered by any of the UK’s governing bodies in football.

It is also designed to ensure that clubs, with spending limited to a percentage of its turnover up to a finite limit, cannot spend way beyond their means, which does not seem to concern the footballing authorities.

So, the big four will continue to battle it out for the top spot, and in their wake Everton, Aston Villa and the rest of the chasing pack will fight for that increasingly coveted fifth position, while talking up their chances of Champions League football.

Mr Whelan will not get his bigger slice of the TV monies for Wigan, the Premier League juggernaut will quickly roll on into another season, and the fans of the bulk of the other clubs will be happy not to be relegated and remain part of the glamour and razzle dazzle of the biggest competition in world football.

Mind you, it is an odd thing when fans, chairmen and managers think that coming fifth is something to celebrate.

But it seems that, for the immediate future at least, fifth is the new first.