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10 years of FIF
Forum SupporterAs a native North American, it is safe to say that the world of European football is one that is completely unlike any other that I have ever been exposed to. North American sports are dominated by player trades, free agent signings, and contract management. European football is more like a purge, where when a smaller club develops or finds a young talent, the bigger clubs go and simply take him.
North American sports pride themselves on parity. Any team (or at least a substantial percentage) has the ability to win the league championship every year. This is in stark contrast to European football, where realistically only 3-4 teams have true championship aspirations at best. Teams these days simply do not have the financial ability to compete with the Bayerns or Barcelonas of the world.
As UEFA attempts to institute Financial Fair Play to prevent teams from spending an outrageous amount of money that would threaten a club’s sustainability (I’m looking at you Monaco and Malaga), perhaps there is a more logical fix to the situation that can be found by looking at North American sports.
For those of you who do not know what a salary cap is, per Wikipedia:
“In professional sports, a salary cap (or wage cap) is an agreement or rule that places a limit on the amount of money that a team can spend on player salaries. The limit exists as a per-player limit or a total limit for the team's roster, or both.”
The purpose of a salary cap is two fold
1) Teams would no longer be able to have star stacked rosters unless every player agrees to a wage cut. With a salary cap Manchester City would likely have to sell Jovetic, and Chelsea would likely have never bought Cuadrado because these players have large salaries – too large of salaries to be allowed to sit on the bench
2) This does not take away the purchasing power of clubs. If Manchester United wants to come by Icardi from us, they can pay whatever price is required to buy him. The caveat is that they must convince Icardi to come at a wage that keeps them under the cap threshold, or as a result of signing Icardi sell someone else.
Manchester United this year has spent £215.8m on the wages of their players. This is more than 5 other EPL teams COMBINED. By limiting the amount of wages these rich clubs can spend on players, we are (unlike FFP) allowing these clubs to continue to spend money as they please on transfer fees, while also (theoretically) increasing the amount of talent available to clubs like the Spurs or Sampdoria.
The ultimate goal of this theory is to not take away the spending power of the clubs who earn the highest revenues, while forcing them to make decisions about which players they want as opposed to just collecting players to sit on their bench.
I have done absolutely zero research into if this has ever been discussed before, on this forum or in actual media circle, so perhaps this is a bit stale of a topic. I’m still curious to hear your opinions though.
North American sports pride themselves on parity. Any team (or at least a substantial percentage) has the ability to win the league championship every year. This is in stark contrast to European football, where realistically only 3-4 teams have true championship aspirations at best. Teams these days simply do not have the financial ability to compete with the Bayerns or Barcelonas of the world.
As UEFA attempts to institute Financial Fair Play to prevent teams from spending an outrageous amount of money that would threaten a club’s sustainability (I’m looking at you Monaco and Malaga), perhaps there is a more logical fix to the situation that can be found by looking at North American sports.
For those of you who do not know what a salary cap is, per Wikipedia:
“In professional sports, a salary cap (or wage cap) is an agreement or rule that places a limit on the amount of money that a team can spend on player salaries. The limit exists as a per-player limit or a total limit for the team's roster, or both.”
The purpose of a salary cap is two fold
1) Teams would no longer be able to have star stacked rosters unless every player agrees to a wage cut. With a salary cap Manchester City would likely have to sell Jovetic, and Chelsea would likely have never bought Cuadrado because these players have large salaries – too large of salaries to be allowed to sit on the bench
2) This does not take away the purchasing power of clubs. If Manchester United wants to come by Icardi from us, they can pay whatever price is required to buy him. The caveat is that they must convince Icardi to come at a wage that keeps them under the cap threshold, or as a result of signing Icardi sell someone else.
Manchester United this year has spent £215.8m on the wages of their players. This is more than 5 other EPL teams COMBINED. By limiting the amount of wages these rich clubs can spend on players, we are (unlike FFP) allowing these clubs to continue to spend money as they please on transfer fees, while also (theoretically) increasing the amount of talent available to clubs like the Spurs or Sampdoria.
The ultimate goal of this theory is to not take away the spending power of the clubs who earn the highest revenues, while forcing them to make decisions about which players they want as opposed to just collecting players to sit on their bench.
I have done absolutely zero research into if this has ever been discussed before, on this forum or in actual media circle, so perhaps this is a bit stale of a topic. I’m still curious to hear your opinions though.
