League One Clubs? proposal for salary cap

[harpo88]

https://www.theguardian.com/football...ax-snubbed-efl

Interesting to see how this ends up

[Lolmorgan]

It will stay the same to please the bigger clubs.

[animallittle3]

It's an interesting idea and one I'm familiar with as a follower of Rugby League which is a salary capped sport .

All Super League clubs are capped at a 2.1 million spend on players wages per season , however you are allowed to have up to 3 players in your squad known as marquee signings that don't count on the salary cap and you can pay them pretty much what you want .

Homegrown players only count as 30k on the cap irrespective of what you pay them , this is obviously to encourage you to develop your own players .

If you lose a player due to a serious injury and out for more than 6 games he can be removed from the cap in order to bring in a replacement .

You can add two players to your squad earning under 35k a year and that's not added to the cap .

So whilst it's a salary capped sport there is wriggle room available that doesn't entirely squash ambition with the 3 marquee signings .

What you tend to see is that the majority of contracts are honoured , if my club Wakefield Trinity signs a player on a 4 year deal you can be pretty certain he will be at the club for those 4 years , there are exceptions but it's pretty rare which means transfer fees between clubs are also rare .

The RFL as a governing body do not tolerate clubs who experience financial difficulties through either financial incompetence or overspending , they relegated one of the games biggest clubs the Bradford Bulls to the 3rd tier for financial irregularities a decade ago and they've just kicked Salford out of Super League for the same reason .

I wouldn't go as far as to say it's a perfect policy , owners of Rugby League clubs still have to provide personal funding in order for clubs to operate , travel costs , stadiums , training facilities , medical and fitness staff , coaching teams , academies and youth development , office staff including the CEO .

Without owner funding almost everyone would go bust however the most positive aspect of a capped Rugby League sport is that the game has never lost it's community based heritage , mega salaries haven't impacted Rugby League in the way we've seen in football .

Whether this would make football below the championship a better game is debatable in my opinion .

[Brin]

Imagine telling any League 1 player your only going to get 673 pounds per week........

The League would collapse as no one would be willing to put their body on the line for that kind of wage.

[animallittle3]

Imagine telling any League 1 player your only going to get 673 pounds per week........

The League would collapse as no one would be willing to put their body on the line for that kind of wage.

I don't know Brin , 35k a year for doing something you love rather than have to earn a crust in a factory or a warehouse distribution centre for probably less doesn't seem too bad in my opinion .

Plenty of Rugby League players put their bodies on the line for that kind of money and they come from more or less the same backgrounds as footballers .

I reckon plenty of National League players will play professionally for around that kind of money too .

I don't think the game would collapse either because nobody is restricting your ability to earn the mega bucks if you are good enough to play above League one level .

What we have today is a market led game , however the market only really applies to the Premier League who have the financial capability to pay the mega money the EFL doesn't but chooses not to face that reality , our friends down the road at S6 are a classic example .

A club who paid Barry Bannon 35k a week to play in league one !!! .

My doubts about a salary cap in football below the Premier League coming to fruition isn't based on the fact i think it wouldn't work it's the fact that the people within the game refuse to see reality , recognising what you are seems to be the issue .

That's not helped by fans who don't always want to admit what they are either in reality , nobody who follows Wednesday complained when Chansiri was spending millions a few years back or even considered what would happen if they didn't make it to the Premier League .

The whole of the EFL needs a financial reset such as a salary cap but the culture within football makes that a difficult thing to face up to in my opinion .