Financial Fair Play - Good or Evil?

Well, it's hardly above the equilibrium market rate anyway;p The UK minimum just allows loads of companies to offer jobs at 6.08£ an hour because they're well aware that's what everyone else is offering. In Norway, hardly anyone would take a typical minimum wage job for less than 13£;p

So 13£ is the roughly the equilibrium. If the going rate is fine, there's no point in a minimum wage. The UK minimum actually prevents firms employing more people, they'd rather be paying less.

Off topic though, gawd Chaz.
 
Didn't see you post Mike til just now.

hasnt worked out too well in the MLS, and dont the NBA pay huge wages anyway?

And yes it would be the death of euro football, you think england is the only country with high wages? barcelona is the highest paid team in any team sport in the world. it would be terrible for european football

It's worked out great for the MLS, it has ensured parity which means that teams in emerging markets are well-supported (they have a chance at winning). The increased competition makes the league more exciting since you have no idea who will win it, and the fans of all teams are interested because they have a reasonable shot at having a good season.

The NBA has high salaries but there is parity and every team has a chance of being a title contender within a couple years with good drafting and signings. That's why it's an awesome league. The salary cap isn't necessarily about making wages lower, it's about making the competition more level and the game less about money.

I didn't say England is the only country with high wages, it's the Big 3 or 4 (especially England and Barca and RM). A salary cap would mean that those leagues could no longer dominate, the talent would be spread more equally throughout Europe...players would stay in their own countries as opposed to going over to one of the Big 3 where they'd get paid more. So even though there would be less Latin American talent in Europe, it would be good for Europe as a whole since the smaller leagues would have a chance at competing with the Big 3. This would be great for European and global football, it wouldn't be the death of it.

That's a great ideology to have, apart from it destroying all modern economic theory, it's practically perfect.

?

All that would happen with a salary cap is there would be hundreds of players on the top, top wage.

No, a salary cap refers to no team being able to have a wage bill above x amount of money. That's what we've done since the 90's in American sports (baseball is the exception, they have a luxury tax, where if you spend over x amount of dollars, you have to give the MLB that much as a luxury tax, it keeps a lot of teams from spending but not the super rich teams like the New York Yankees, which is why they are good every year).
 

Players will move to where they can earn the most money, fact. It happens now, and putting a salary cap in Europe doesn't prevent from the money in football finding it's way to Asia, for instance. The only way it would work if there's a worldwide salary cap, but then that still won't work due to exchange rates and domestic laws. It's exactly the same reason government won't increase taxes even more for the rich, they're afraid of the best people in the land moving away to wear they can maximise their earning potential.

Secondly, your analogy of American sports doesn't work. As I said before, it's a monopsony - If you're an American footballer you have no choice but to play for an American team at the wage rate they give you. If you're a top footballer and are unhappy with your wage rate, there are numerous other countries that will be able to offer you a higher rate. Football (Soccer) is worldwide. American sports are almost completely domestic. This is where the comparison breaks down.

Thirdly, you assume ticket prices will fall. They won't. Football clubs charge that much because they can. The demand for Premier League tickets is highly inelastic, it was when clubs realised this they started charging incredibly high prices. Just because your costs have fallen, doesn't mean you'll drop the pricing. The only way ticket prices would fall is if the best players left for greater wages elsewhere, hence lowering demand for tickets.

A salary cap will cause players to stay in their domestic leagues? So, lets say a Brazilian wants to earn greater wages because he can't earn that much in Brazil. He's perfectly happy to move continents when there's no salary cap. But then you state that when we limit European wages, those players will suddenly all want to stay domestic. Not at all, they'll do as the Brazilian and move to where the money is (You even admitted yourself players already go to the top clubs for wages), so I'm not sure where the logic that a salary cap will domesticate players comes from. If a Brazilian (Who's far more geographically immobile) is willing to move continents for money, a European would be willing to move to say, Asia.

Football wouldn't look like it did decades ago. Money from Sky etc. has changed the way the game is forever. A salary cap isn't going to remove this money, it will just re-distribute it to circulate elsewhere. There would be less good players in Europe because they've moved to a place where no salary cap exists, not because they stay put. Just like the Brazilian league is weak by comparison to La Liga, Serie A, EPL etc. All the players have moved there. Less top players equals less sponsorship, less top players equals less TV revenue. Less top players equals less entertainment value. Lets take the NBA again, lets say hypothetically a massive interest in Basketball developed in England. Sky bought all the rights, there's no salary cap. We offer millions more for the players to join our league - But you'd be perfectly fine that the NBA now has far less talent in it?

This, is why a salary cap would be the death of European football.
 
Players will move to where they can earn the most money, fact. It happens now, and putting a salary cap in Europe doesn't prevent from the money in football finding it's way to Asia, for instance. The only way it would work if there's a worldwide salary cap, but then that still won't work due to exchange rates and domestic laws. It's exactly the same reason government won't increase taxes even more for the rich, they're afraid of the best people in the land moving away to wear they can maximise their earning potential.

True, but footballers play for more than money. The leagues in the Middle East can and sometimes do pay very good players extremely high wages to play there. The vast majority of players won't go there because the competition is not strong enough. If it does improve drastically and these leagues start stealing lots of foreign players, than they can extend the cap to that area too. And that was what I said originally: a global flat salary cap.

The fact is the only place that can unfairly attract talent due to money is Europe. The other places in the world that can occasionally shell out loads of money (the MLS and Arab Leagues, the Asian leagues aren't there yet financially) aren't going to be poaching talent any time soon. And if they do, than fine, extend the salary cap to those regions (global flat salary cap).

A salary cap would be tough because of exchange rates and the differences in the local economies, and one solution would be to come up with a formula to develop an appropriate salary cap for each country based on per capita income, attendance, etc. but I would recommend that they could simply apply a flat salary cap across the leagues of Europe that would high enough that it would only de facto affect the big clubs in the Big 4 countries. This way those countries' spending would be curbed and the other players would stay in their local leagues. Clubs in Finland spending too much isn't really affecting global football. It's the spending of the Big 4. Curbing their spending is what will make things better. Your argument was that all of the players would go to another country, but this obviously wouldn't happen because none of the leagues outside of the Big 5 have the potential to buy up all of the best players from all over Europe. And even if they did somehow, there would still be that flat salary cap that would eventually catch up to them once they started signing a bunch of good players.

Secondly, your analogy of American sports doesn't work. As I said before, it's a monopsony - If you're an American footballer you have no choice but to play for an American team at the wage rate they give you. If you're a top footballer and are unhappy with your wage rate, there are numerous other countries that will be able to offer you a higher rate. Football (Soccer) is worldwide. American sports are almost completely domestic. This is where the comparison breaks down.

It works fine. If you apply a salary cap across Europe, where else are the players going to go? Only the greediest of the greedy would leave top level football for the MLS or Qatar. The vast majority would simply just stay in their local leagues and you would have much more parity within Europe and around the world.

Thirdly, you assume ticket prices will fall. They won't. Football clubs charge that much because they can. The demand for Premier League tickets is highly inelastic, it was when clubs realised this they started charging incredibly high prices. Just because your costs have fallen, doesn't mean you'll drop the pricing. The only way ticket prices would fall is if the best players left for greater wages elsewhere, hence lowering demand for tickets.

My point about the tickets was a minor one. If you press me, however, if a salary cap were implemented and foreign players started leaving the Prem to go play in their local leagues, than demand would certainly decrease. A lot of people would stop paying for the games if the product decreased, meaning the price would decrease. I have a feeling more people would start supporting their local clubs rather than just rooting for ManU, Chelsea, and Arsenal, since those teams would no longer be so dominant. Demand would increase in the Championship, League One, etc. while decreasing in the Prem, and of course you have the Prem clubs spending far less on wages and transfers, which should lead to lower prices.

A salary cap will cause players to stay in their domestic leagues? So, lets say a Brazilian wants to earn greater wages because he can't earn that much in Brazil. He's perfectly happy to move continents when there's no salary cap. But then you state that when we limit European wages, those players will suddenly all want to stay domestic. Not at all, they'll do as the Brazilian and move to where the money is (You even admitted yourself players already go to the top clubs for wages), so I'm not sure where the logic that a salary cap will domesticate players comes from. If a Brazilian (Who's far more geographically immobile) is willing to move continents for money, a European would be willing to move to say, Asia.

But you're assuming that players only move for wages. A few are greedy and do that, but most of them are competitors and will want to play in a good league (which is why the idea that they all will go to Asia or the MLS is wrong, but again, if that started happening, than you extend the cap to those leagues too somehow, perhaps by giving them the same flat salary cap that Europe has). And more importantly, if wages were more equal, most would rather stay home than play abroad.

Football wouldn't look like it did decades ago. Money from Sky etc. has changed the way the game is forever. A salary cap isn't going to remove this money, it will just re-distribute it to circulate elsewhere. There would be less good players in Europe because they've moved to a place where no salary cap exists, not because they stay put. Just like the Brazilian league is weak by comparison to La Liga, Serie A, EPL etc. All the players have moved there. Less top players equals less sponsorship, less top players equals less TV revenue. Less top players equals less entertainment value. Lets take the NBA again, lets say hypothetically a massive interest in Basketball developed in England. Sky bought all the rights, there's no salary cap. We offer millions more for the players to join our league - But you'd be perfectly fine that the NBA now has far less talent in it?

Where would all of this money be redistributed to if there was a salary cap in place? In the Big 4, less money would be spent on transfer and player wages and there would be less demand. I have a feeling this will lead to lower ticket prices, which is good. Yet you keep on assuming that a salary cap will instantly lead to all of the money and players heading to another league. Which one specifically? The only areas in the world that could possibly support football leagues with the kind of wages to steal talent from Europe would be the US, Asia, and the Middle East. In the case of the first two, the player wages there are extremely low, as are local attendances, ticket prices, sponsorship deals, TV deals, etc. There is no way they could support a league that could poach players from Europe, and even if they did, they would run into the global flat salary cap. As far as the Middle East goes, they do have enough money to throw around at European players thanks to their Sheikhs, but the global salary cap would apply to them too, meaning they could pay their players no more than ManU could. Are you seriously scared of a ManU player leaving to go to Qatar for the same wage?

Your NBA example is a poor one again. First of all, it wouldn't happen, because Britain would have to have a social revolution to support basketball enough to rival the NBA's wages. Even if this did happen, they won't be able to pay their players wages higher than the ones in the NBA. The NBA is just too **** profitable. It is in a huge country with the world's largest economy. Now, even IF Britain somehow got more money in basketball than the NBA and could pay the players higher wages, it will take a long, long time before most players would want to move since the level of competition would be too low. After a long while I agree that enough players would move so that the competition would equalize and you'd have NBA players leaving for British basketball. But even then that doesn't happen in my example, since there is a flat global salary cap. The NBA players would not be making more in Britain, hence they wouldn't leave the US.

This, is why a salary cap would be the death of European football.

No. If European players started leaving Europe for another country, than yeah that would be the death of European football (which is exactly what happened to South American football, the death of South American football is thanks to the wealth of Europeans who steal their best players). Which country are they going to go to? I've already discussed how ridiculous the notion is that they would leave in droves to play in Qatar, and again that would be impossible since in my scenario there is a global salary cap and the Qatari teams could not have a wage bill higher than any European team's. What would happen is players would be much, much more likely to play in their local leagues since there wouldn't be higher salaries in the Big 3. This would mean more even competition in Europe, which would be good for most European countries. In England, you guys wouldn't get all of the foreign players, meaning the level of play would be lower in your league. and you wouldn't dominate the European competitions like you do now. In other words, it would be just like English football was until the 90's. What would be so bad about that?

Overall you're think about this waaaay too much like it's something in an econ textbook. Think of it in more practical, real world terms, where players want to play where the competition is high and like to stay at home if they can. If we think really abstractly in terms of econ models, a salary cap only imposed in Europe would lead to players going to Qatar (where they actually could pay the wages). But that won't happen in real life since no one wants to go to Qatar, and more importantly, because this would be a global salary cap, so the Qatari's couldn't do that.

Now, the problem with a flat salary cap is it would do nothing to stop the mid-tier leagues from taking the talent of the really small leagues...for example, the Russian league teams could easily poach talent from Bulgaria, for example, since no Bulgarian team's wage bill is anywhere near the cap, and the Russian team could pay the Bulgarian much more than he earns with his local team while still staying under the flat salary cap. What I will say is first of all, that isn't nearly as grave of a problem as what happens in the current system, where you have teams from only 3 or 4 leagues dominating the rest of the world. A flat salary cap means that no league will be able to dominate, you'd have the top 10 leagues in Europe all at a relatively even playing field. This would make things way better, even though it wouldn't help out the next best 10 leagues out so much (however, since less players in general would be playing abroad, more good players would stay in those leagues). But to fix this, after the flat salary cap was implemented for a while and the playing field was leveled, you could add in a more complex cap system based on each league so that certain leagues could pay their players more than others...this would keep the Russians from taking all of the Bulgarians since they would be under a stricter cap.
 
True, but footballers play for more than money. The leagues in the Middle East can and sometimes do pay very good players extremely high wages to play there. The vast majority of players won't go there because the competition is not strong enough. If it does improve drastically and these leagues start stealing lots of foreign players, than they can extend the cap to that area too. And that was what I said originally: a global flat salary cap.
You proved this yourself when you mentioned players moving to Europe. It won't happen immediately, but eventually money will make its way to other continents, and the players will follow. A footballer's career is extremely short, how very naive to assume they wouldn't maximise their earnings from their unique talent. Of course they will. I have economic theory and case studies of people migrating away proves the theory. You are just telling me that something will happen, when, in all honesty - it won't.
A salary cap would be tough because of exchange rates and the differences in the local economies, and one solution would be to come up with a formula to develop an appropriate salary cap for each country based on per capita income, attendance, etc. but I would recommend that they could simply apply a flat salary cap across the leagues of Europe that would high enough that it would only de facto affect the big clubs in the Big 4 countries. This way those countries' spending would be curbed and the other players would stay in their local leagues. Clubs in Finland spending too much isn't really affecting global football. It's the spending of the Big 4. Curbing their spending is what will make things better. Your argument was that all of the players would go to another country, but this obviously wouldn't happen because none of the leagues outside of the Big 5 have the potential to buy up all of the best players from all over Europe. And even if they did somehow, there would still be that flat salary cap that would eventually catch up to them once they started signing a bunch of good players.

A global salary cap won't work. Nor will your method of calculating a cap. Each country would have wildly different caps, which is horribly unfair to other leagues. What you're failing to realise is that you keep harping on about the big 4. Over time, the big 4 will simply migrate elsewhere, and I'd rather keep it in Europe. The big 4 was established through money, yet you're arguing that money elsewhere won't create a new top 4? Short sighted and illogical.
It works fine. If you apply a salary cap across Europe, where else are the players going to go? Only the greediest of the greedy would leave top level football for the MLS or Qatar. The vast majority would simply just stay in their local leagues and you would have much more parity within Europe and around the world.
As far as I'm aware, UEFA don't have the power to implement a European cap for every league in Europe. What if one FA decides it doesn't want the cap, the whole thing falls down like a pack of cards. Your whole theory is based on so many assumptions from 'footballers don't care for money' and that a salary cap will a) work and b) easy to implement. All of those are debatable at best, but all leaning towards being wrong.


My point about the tickets was a minor one. If you press me, however, if a salary cap were implemented and foreign players started leaving the Prem to go play in their local leagues, than demand would certainly decrease. A lot of people would stop paying for the games if the product decreased, meaning the price would decrease. I have a feeling more people would start supporting their local clubs rather than just rooting for ManU, Chelsea, and Arsenal, since those teams would no longer be so dominant. Demand would increase in the Championship, League One, etc. while decreasing in the Prem, and of course you have the Prem clubs spending far less on wages and transfers, which should lead to lower prices.
I'm pretty sure I said that would be the cause of falling demand. But you said players will stay in Europe! I, for one, would consider the EPL a worse league if we were deprived of talent coming through.

But you're assuming that players only move for wages. A few are greedy and do that, but most of them are competitors and will want to play in a good league (which is why the idea that they all will go to Asia or the MLS is wrong, but again, if that started happening, than you extend the cap to those leagues too somehow, perhaps by giving them the same flat salary cap that Europe has). And more importantly, if wages were more equal, most would rather stay home than play abroad.
Most of them are greedy. Has been proven time and time again, the ones who stay at a club for a long time are the rarities. So again, I fail to see how you conclude this.


Where would all of this money be redistributed to if there was a salary cap in place? In the Big 4, less money would be spent on transfer and player wages and there would be less demand. I have a feeling this will lead to lower ticket prices, which is good. Yet you keep on assuming that a salary cap will instantly lead to all of the money and players heading to another league. Which one specifically? The only areas in the world that could possibly support football leagues with the kind of wages to steal talent from Europe would be the US, Asia, and the Middle East. In the case of the first two, the player wages there are extremely low, as are local attendances, ticket prices, sponsorship deals, TV deals, etc. There is no way they could support a league that could poach players from Europe, and even if they did, they would run into the global flat salary cap. As far as the Middle East goes, they do have enough money to throw around at European players thanks to their Sheikhs, but the global salary cap would apply to them too, meaning they could pay their players no more than ManU could. Are you seriously scared of a ManU player leaving to go to Qatar for the same wage?
It won't instantly happen. But it will, over time. Global salary cap simply isn't feasible. A European one is stretching things a **** of a lot in the first place, so can we get rid of that idea, please. As I've said multiple times, a salary cap works for America because it's the sole buyer of American sportsmen. Show me a market where a salary cap has worked for a global brand. Imagine if England had a salary cap on bankers, do you think they wouldn't all migrate to America. But what if England was the only country with banks? Well, then you have no choice - If you want to be a banker you have to take the salary given by England.
Your NBA example is a poor one again. First of all, it wouldn't happen, because Britain would have to have a social revolution to support basketball enough to rival the NBA's wages. Even if this did happen, they won't be able to pay their players wages higher than the ones in the NBA. The NBA is just too **** profitable. It is in a huge country with the world's largest economy. Now, even IF Britain somehow got more money in basketball than the NBA and could pay the players higher wages, it will take a long, long time before most players would want to move since the level of competition would be too low. After a long while I agree that enough players would move so that the competition would equalize and you'd have NBA players leaving for British basketball. But even then that doesn't happen in my example, since there is a flat global salary cap. The NBA players would not be making more in Britain, hence they wouldn't leave the US.
It was a completely hypothetical scenario to highlight the point why a salary cap only works for a sole buyer market. You've proven my point though, " it will take a long, long time before most players would want to move since the level of competition would be too low. After a long while I agree that enough players would move so that the competition would equalize and you'd have NBA players leaving for British basketball." If it takes a long time is irrelevant. I said it would be the death of EU football, I purposely didn't add a timescale. I don't care if it would take 20 years. I don't want the leagues I'm interested in to be gone in 20 years. I'm fine how they are.
No. If European players started leaving Europe for another country, than yeah that would be the death of European football (which is exactly what happened to South American football, the death of South American football is thanks to the wealth of Europeans who steal their best players). Which country are they going to go to? I've already discussed how ridiculous the notion is that they would leave in droves to play in Qatar, and again that would be impossible since in my scenario there is a global salary cap and the Qatari teams could not have a wage bill higher than any European team's. What would happen is players would be much, much more likely to play in their local leagues since there wouldn't be higher salaries in the Big 3. This would mean more even competition in Europe, which would be good for most European countries. In England, you guys wouldn't get all of the foreign players, meaning the level of play would be lower in your league. and you wouldn't dominate the European competitions like you do now. In other words, it would be just like English football was until the 90's. What would be so bad about that?

I've already discussed how ridiculous the notion of a global and EU salary cap is, but you still go on about it. Players moved to European football from S.America. Why would they not move to Qatar from Europe? I don't see how you can say something's already happened, and then say it won't happen second time around. Of course it will freaking happen, did all the S.Americans stay domestic because higher salaries weren't there? No, they moved.
Overall you're think about this waaaay too much like it's something in an econ textbook. Think of it in more practical, real world terms, where players want to play where the competition is high and like to stay at home if they can. If we think really abstractly in terms of econ models, a salary cap only imposed in Europe would lead to players going to Qatar (where they actually could pay the wages). But that won't happen in real life since no one wants to go to Qatar, and more importantly, because this would be a global salary cap, so the Qatari's couldn't do that.
And you're thinking about this waaaaaay too abstract basing everything on wild assumptions that person X won't do scenario Y. Your whole model falls apart if one assumption fails. My economics model has been proven in multiple other markets, I don't see what makes football so special it ignores this. Players will move for money, it's a fact. The basic economic assumption is that people will act in the most logical way. For most people, it's pure logic to maximise your earning potential. Especially when you have a career of ~15 years. If you were a footballer, would you rather retire rich at 35 and never work again, or retire at 35 and work for 30 more years because you didn't want to utilise your talent?
 
You proved this yourself when you mentioned players moving to Europe. It won't happen immediately, but eventually money will make its way to other continents, and the players will follow. A footballer's career is extremely short, how very naive to assume they wouldn't maximise their earnings from their unique talent. Of course they will. I have economic theory and case studies of people migrating away proves the theory. You are just telling me that something will happen, when, in all honesty - it won't.

OK, so eventually, over a long period of time, players might move to the Middle East because there is money there. I agree that this will happen, but it will take a long time for a few reasons. First, the migration to Europe happened because European football was almost as good as South American football. Middle Eastern football, however, is lightyears away from top-flight football, so it will take a long, long time for this process to happen, if it ever does. Very few serious footballers will want to go there, and as far as the mercenary types, who the **** wants to live in the Middle East? You're excluding the serious footballers as well as the greedy ones who want to enjoy the lifestyle.

Second, the money is already there in the Middle East but few players move for this reason. You're telling me that you're sure that x will happen because of an economic model, but I'm talking about the real world, where this doesn't happen. A salary cap won't give the Middle East more money. Middle Eastern football doesn't even need more money, the rich owners could spend millions on an all-star team if they felt like it. But it doesn't happen for the reasons listed above. How is a salary cap going to change things? Even with all of the money there, players still don't move because of the quality of football and the quality of life. A salary cap, in fact, would prevent players from moving to the Middle East because those clubs wouldn't be able to offer obscene wages. Under the current system they can outspend a lot of European clubs, but it doesn't happen. According to your economic models, the Middle East should be the best in football because of the money there, but it doesn't happen. What good players go to play there? Sand is the only one I can think of. Juninho did for a bit but now he's going back to Brazil to play for pennies. Even if the salary cap only applied to Europe, the players aren't moving to the Middle East. They South Americans don't do that now, so why would the Europeans start doing it?

Third, and most importantly, your argument is that players would leave poorer areas for Middle Eastern football. But that happens already with Europe...it's a bad thing now that another region might start buying up players? Why is it so important that Europe remains dominant? Would it be so bad if another continent could rival them?


A global salary cap won't work. Nor will your method of calculating a cap. Each country would have wildly different caps, which is horribly unfair to other leagues. What you're failing to realise is that you keep harping on about the big 4. Over time, the big 4 will simply migrate elsewhere, and I'd rather keep it in Europe. The big 4 was established through money, yet you're arguing that money elsewhere won't create a new top 4? Short sighted and illogical.

A global salary cap could easily work. All they have to do is pick a value. And as far as the countries go, each country wouldn't have a wildly different cap, all they'd have to do is pick a formula. Maybe they could only do it based on per capita GDP. Wouldn't be that complicated. You claim the big 4 would migrate elsewhere with a salary cap, but it wouldn't, that's the point of the salary cap. A salary cap makes it impossible for teams to for financial reasons. What it would do is great rid of these top 4's and create parity within the leagues and among the leagues. It would be great for football.

Oh, and may I ask why you want to keep it in Europe? Might it have something to do with the fact that you're from Europe? A few European countries unfairly dominate the football world because of their finances, which is completely unfair to poorer countries who produce better footballers. That has ruined the game in a lot of places and I want to see them change it. Now that I'm proposing a method that you've interpreted to have the possibility of making footballers move elsewhere (which, as I've repeatedly demonstrate, would not happen thanks to a salary cap) you're saying it would be unfair. It sounds like you're a football fan who benefits from the current system and just doesn't want to see it change.

As far as I'm aware, UEFA don't have the power to implement a European cap for every league in Europe. What if one FA decides it doesn't want the cap, the whole thing falls down like a pack of cards. Your whole theory is based on so many assumptions from 'footballers don't care for money' and that a salary cap will a) work and b) easy to implement. All of those are debatable at best, but all leaning towards being wrong.

If they have the power to do the FFP surely they can implement a salary cap. You are right they can't enforce it within the leagues, but let's remember it's only going to be an issue for the top teams since it would be fairly high. All they have to do is make a salary cap, and if you go over it you're not allowed to participate in European competitions.

I'm pretty sure I said that would be the cause of falling demand. But you said players will stay in Europe! I, for one, would consider the EPL a worse league if we were deprived of talent coming through.

European players would stay in Europe, they would just be more likely to stay in their home countries, which would be good for European football as a whole. I do agree that the EPL would become a worst league since it wouldn't be able to buy up the players from other countries like it does now. But that would be better for Europe and the world.

Most of them are greedy. Has been proven time and time again, the ones who stay at a club for a long time are the rarities. So again, I fail to see how you conclude this.

But greed isn't their only motivation. If you take out the financial incentive, players for the most part will stay at home, which is better for world football. What I'm trying to do, in fact, is to remove the financial incentive by implementing a salary cap. This would prevent all of the players from leaving their home leagues and joining the Big 3 for financial reasons. They're not all going to jump ship to play in the UAE because the salary cap applies to them too, the quality of football is terrible, and the quality of life is terrible. And even if they did jump to the UAE, what would be so bad about that? The people in the Big 4 got to steal the world's talent and have it all for a few decades, how could you cry foul if another league started doing that?

It won't instantly happen. But it will, over time. Global salary cap simply isn't feasible. A European one is stretching things a **** of a lot in the first place, so can we get rid of that idea, please. As I've said multiple times, a salary cap works for America because it's the sole buyer of American sportsmen. Show me a market where a salary cap has worked for a global brand. Imagine if England had a salary cap on bankers, do you think they wouldn't all migrate to America. But what if England was the only country with banks? Well, then you have no choice - If you want to be a banker you have to take the salary given by England.

Already answer this plenty of times, a global salary cap prevents them from going to America too because they couldn't make any more in America than they do in England. In our case, they also wouldn't go to the Qatari league because the quality of football sucks as does the lifestyle. There already is plenty of money in Qatar, they could easily start buying all of the best Argentine players if they wanted to (Argentina has low salaries). Why doesn't this happen? Because the vast majority of players would take low pay in Argentina over being a mercenary in a ****** league in a ****** country. Sand is the exception, and I bet he heads back to Argentina at some point. So even if the salary cap didn't extend to Qatar, you don't have to worry about good players leaving their leagues to play there, since it already doesn't happen.

It was a completely hypothetical scenario to highlight the point why a salary cap only works for a sole buyer market. You've proven my point though, " it will take a long, long time before most players would want to move since the level of competition would be too low. After a long while I agree that enough players would move so that the competition would equalize and you'd have NBA players leaving for British basketball." If it takes a long time is irrelevant. I said it would be the death of EU football, I purposely didn't add a timescale. I don't care if it would take 20 years. I don't want the leagues I'm interested in to be gone in 20 years. I'm fine how they are.

First of all, it's not going to happen, because in my scenario, there's a global salary cap. We've been through this, they wouldn't make more in Qatar than they would in the Prem because of that. The terrible football and quality of life is why players don't leave to play in Qatar now and why they certainly wouldn't leave if a salary cap prevented that from happening. Also, this won't be the death of EU football since with a salary cap the EU nations could retain their best players. It would be great for European football as a whole, although the fans from big clubs in Spain, England, and Italy would complain. However, I think the majority of fans in those countries would celebrate the changes since it would give their smaller clubs a shot at competing with the big ones. Not only would it be great for European football, it would actually be great for the football in the Big 3!

I've already discussed how ridiculous the notion of a global and EU salary cap is, but you still go on about it. Players moved to European football from S.America. Why would they not move to Qatar from Europe? I don't see how you can say something's already happened, and then say it won't happen second time around. Of course it will freaking happen, did all the S.Americans stay domestic because higher salaries weren't there? No, they moved.

They wouldn't move to Qatar from Europe because thanks to the salary cap, Qatar couldn't pay them more. Again, let's pretend the salary cap doesn't even extend to Qatar for some reason. They aren't going to play there because the quality of football is so bad as is the lifestyle. And you mention the South Americans...they don't leave in droves to play in the Middle East. Why not? According to your models, they should. Salaries are extremely low in Argentina, but they don't leave for the better pay in the Middle East. It's because players would rather play at home for the clubs they grew up watching. They're rather play in their home country, in a place where they feel comfortable with the style of play.

And you're thinking about this waaaaaay too abstract basing everything on wild assumptions that person X won't do scenario Y. Your whole model falls apart if one assumption fails. My economics model has been proven in multiple other markets, I don't see what makes football so special it ignores this. Players will move for money, it's a fact. The basic economic assumption is that people will act in the most logical way. For most people, it's pure logic to maximise your earning potential. Especially when you have a career of ~15 years. If you were a footballer, would you rather retire rich at 35 and never work again, or retire at 35 and work for 30 more years because you didn't want to utilise your talent?

But I'm the one referring to the real world here. According your economics model, Qatar should rival Europe already because they should be able to buy the Argentine, Brazilian, and African leagues. I'm using a combination of common sense, logic, and historical and real world example. You're trying to prove the whole thing with a model that doesn't even work in real life.
 
Curtis & Joel:

You two are a joke.

Kind regards,

FM Base
 
How do you prevent a club offering lower wages and higher bonuses? Why focus on Asia, the markets could easily reverse to S.America etc. Players already have a value of their worth, Argentine players can't be picked up because Qatar isn't established as a league yet, and can't pick said players up. UEFA don't have the right to implement a salary cap in any way. Being part of the EU means free trade of goods and labour. A salary cap is a restrictive policy, therefore illegal in European law. Even if they could implement it, all it takes is one country to say no. Wayne Rooney's taxes pay about 4 annual nurses a year. Multiply by the whole premier leagues superstars, you think we're going to allow UEFA to restrict that sort of money?

In short, won't work.

Thanks Alex, <3 you too.
 
How do you prevent a club offering lower wages and higher bonuses? Why focus on Asia, the markets could easily reverse to S.America etc. Players already have a value of their worth, Argentine players can't be picked up because Qatar isn't established as a league yet, and can't pick said players up. UEFA don't have the right to implement a salary cap in any way. Being part of the EU means free trade of goods and labour. A salary cap is a restrictive policy, therefore illegal in European law. Even if they could implement it, all it takes is one country to say no. Wayne Rooney's taxes pay about 4 annual nurses a year. Multiply by the whole premier leagues superstars, you think we're going to allow UEFA to restrict that sort of money?

In short, won't work.

Thanks Alex, <3 you too.

Markets won't reverse to South America because either a), it's a global cap, or b) if it's just a European cap they could never pay wages that high. Wages in South America are incredibly low, Brazilian clubs recently can occasionally offer a star a large contract but they're not going to be able to pay higher than what would be the Euro salary cap to steal European players. Even if this did happen, why would it be such a bad thing? Europe plunders the Americas and destroys their civilization, Europe colonizes the Americas, Europe steals South America's players for a few decades, now why would it be unfair if South America got some European players for a while? Don't worry though, would never happen for financial reasons.

UEFA may or may not be able to enforce a salary cap on each individual league (we'd have to talk to a legal specialist about that), but remember we're talking about for European competitions. In the same way they enforce the FFP they enforce the salary cap. Go over the cap and you can't participate. The cap would be aimed at the top clubs anyway.

And as far as Rooney's taxes, now that the clubs don't have to pay the players those enormously inflated salaries, that money goes into something else. I'd like to think it would go towards paying down debt and then lowering ticket prices, meaning more money for the consumers. The Rooney's of the world would be more likely to stay at their local clubs rather than go to the big club for money reasons, meaning attendance for those clubs will go up. The German league has the highest attendance in the world by far. I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that it has the most parity out of the European leagues. That makes the league more exciting and gives the fans of smaller clubs more of a reason to go to the games...because they might have a season like Hoffenheim or Wolfsburg or Dortmund.
 
UEFA don't have the right to implement a salary cap in the EU market, and they certainly don't have the right to override domestic government policy. FFP is different, they're limiting debt not an exchange of goods. Players are labourers moving between countries, a cap is restrictive so it doesn't fit EU policy.

The money would go to a place with a lower tax rate, and because the market is restricted money will also be lost in the process. So the government is much worse off.

Again, salary cap is neither feasible nor a good idea.
 
UEFA don't have the right to implement a salary cap in the EU market, and they certainly don't have the right to override domestic government policy. FFP is different, they're limiting debt not an exchange of goods. Players are labourers moving between countries, a cap is restrictive so it doesn't fit EU policy.

But they're not telling each league to make that rule, they're simply saying if you want to play in our competition your wage budget has to be under x amount, just as they're saying with the FFP your debt has to be under x amount if you want to play in our competition.

The money would go to a place with a lower tax rate, and because the market is restricted money will also be lost in the process. So the government is much worse off.

This is funny coming from you, wouldn't you prefer the money to go into the hands of the consumers rather than the government? In all seriousness though we're not going to make global football policy based on what is best for the British government, leave them out of the discussion.

Again, salary cap is neither feasible nor a good idea.

Probably won't happen but would be a great idea. If you're a fan of the English Big 4 + ManCity, Barca or Real Madrid, one of the Italian Big 4, or maybe Bayern Munich, than you wouldn't want the salary cap because it wouldn't be good for your club. But it would be great for the football world as a whole, both in Europe and in other countries, and even in the Big 3 (for every club other than the top 4 or so clubs).
 
- They're saying you can't pay a player more than x-amount.

- The consumer gains nothing. Clubs can already sell their merchandise and tickets at these prices. What I prefer is irrelevant. I said governments would no way in **** allow such a large amount of their tax to be removed by some sporting organisation. They wouldn't. It's a global football policy that heavily affects the whole economy, why do you think the government lobbied for the world cup? It's a massive boost. Of course they're involved.

- In a perfectly ideal world where it can be implemented precisely, it's good. But it's not, so we should just agree FFP is a much needed addition and we should be happy UEFA are doing something.
 
I think its a good thing, although I'm very sure UFEA will bottle it if one of the big clubs slips up with financial fair play. I'm not sure they have much power over the big clubs-Barce and Real Madrid are very open about wanting a league with only huge teams - and want the EPL to be cut to 16 teams, to expand the Champions league
 
**** sake. Knew deep down something would go wrong. But it still ****** me off because of goddam legal loopholes that can be exploited. WIth scaled down penalties it's not going to worry the richest/most powerful clubs one bit.
 
Why did they not get lawyers to make sure these proposals were air tight before they forced clubs to implement expensive reform, to meet rules, that weren't even possible? And there goes UEFA's last scrap of credibility.

More reliable source than Goal.com?
 
Why did they not get lawyers to make sure these proposals were air tight before they forced clubs to implement expensive reform, to meet rules, that weren't even possible? And there goes UEFA's last scrap of credibility.

More reliable source than Goal.com?

Just broke on quite a few sites now-thought it would be best to verify as it's goal.com lol. Not on SSN yet though
 
I think it is good because It will improve the standard of home grown players making more mullers and giggs and less ibros and torreses. The world is In a financual meltdown and some people think that man utd and co. Should be alowed to throw money down the drain and have massive debt.
 
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