£1.25m salary cap

[LittleMate]

From the BBC website

League One and League Two clubs would have to operate under squad salary caps, according to proposals put forward by the English Football League.

Third-tier sides would be given a £2.5m ceiling for salaries, while the sum would be £1.25m for the fourth tier.

The plan, as reported in the Telegraph newspaper, would also see clubs given automatic points deductions if players are not paid on time.

The EFL hopes to have the cap in place for the 2020-21 season.

Meanwhile, clubs would be given a vote on the introduction of maximum 20-man squads.

If approved, it would mean only 20 senior professionals at each club, with eight homegrown players - those produced from the club's academy system - within that group.

EFL chairman Rick Parry recently told MPs the game needed "a reset post-Covid", because of the prospect of a £200m hole in finances throughout the three affiliated leagues, including the Championship.

It is suggested clubs would have a season's grace in which to comply with the new measures, while clubs relegated from the Championship would also require a transition period given the disparity in player earnings and income between the second and third tiers.

[LittleMate]

From what we have heard this means we have to cut our wage bill..........

[Smendrick Feaselberg]

From what we have heard this means we have to cut our wage bill..........

I guess it depends if there is any allowance for current budgets, i.e. teams need to comply by a future date. Also presumably it applies to only playing staff.

This should mean more reliance on youth players and loans to pad out the squad on cheap contracts.

[Smendrick Feaselberg]

Also presumably that means £1.25million spent at the end of the season for the whole season. So you can strategically save up salary cap room to spend in the January transfer window on better quality players for half a season.

I.e. at the start of the season you can afford (on average) a £63k/year quality player (allowing for the fact teams will always have good and bad value contracts). But if you don't sign that player at the start of the season you can sign a £130k/year quality player for the rest of the season in January.

[Eat The Rich]

From what we have heard this means we have to cut our wage bill..........

Didn't Ling confirm our wage budget at the fan gathering after the sacking of Fletch? (Bloody hell that seems a long while ago now). He compared us to... was it Luton Town? Does anyone remember what number Ling gave for ours? I definitely think it was over £1.25m.

It does seem a little strange having everyone abide by the same hard limit. If we can afford a wage budget of over £1.25m based on income then why should we be stopped from having one? Surely a % figure based on the club's income would be fairer. I'm all for running clubs sustainably and trying to keep the leagues as open and competitive as possible but if a club at our level can generate three or four times as much as, say, Morecambe then it seems unfair to give us a handicap.

Other potential issues would relate to competitiveness for promoted sides. If you get promoted from League Two with a squad valued at no greater than £1.25m then you're going to have a hell of a lot more of a challenge levelling up to compete with League One clubs. If we assume we're currently spending £2.5m on wages then we'll be suffering a 50% cut in wage expenditure with the knock on effects that that will have to the quality and depth of our squad.

That's another issue. If we assume that we currently have a 25 man squad (ours is closer to 30 when you factor in the loanees) and we're spending £2.5m on wages then that works out to just short of £2k per player per week. If we cut our squad to 20 and have to keep wages down to £1.25m then not only is every player (average out) taking an £800 a week pay cut (without factoring in the youths making up the numbers) there'll also be 100/200 professional footballers out of work (who would have been playing League Two) alone. That's assuming that all 20 clubs have to prune between 5 and 10 senior pros from their wage bill.

I'm not saying that it isn't the right thing to do, it may be in the circumstances , but it does seem that the players will be taking a massive hit and I'm sure the player's union will have an opinion on the matter. This could shake up lower league football in some pretty significant ways. Will the better players be spread around more evenly, improving the over-all quality of this level of football? Will the better players migrate somewhere else where they can carry on getting the money they were used to? Will better players struggle to get contracts because cheap jack-of-all-trades are more cost effective. lots of questions.

[Smendrick Feaselberg]

^ yep, but isn't a percentage based salary allowance basically what we already have at the minute with FFP?

[Dohnut]

And will bonus payments be part of the cap or not. They won’t be a guaranteed salary so win bonus payments, signing on fees, expenses and so on are not part of the salary. Signing on fees are the most obvious. Bung someone £50k for signing the offer a lower Salary.

Ways round it I’m sure.

[AckneyAwks]

Would imagine contracts of no more than two years with many scenarios written in and probably quite a lot of one year contracts for players. This would probably be needed for promotion or relegation between div 1 and div 2. Not sure of all the financial rules but would most clubs look to take youngsters from Premier clubs with them paying the wages so that league clubs can get round the salary cap.

[StillSpike]

Simple cash salary cap is relatively easy to get around. Players wife/sweetheart can be employed by a sponsor. Part time players could also be employed for their "other" job by a sponsor (see Dumbarton).

I bang on about it, but a flat cap on the total number of players any club can register is - IMO - far and away the best way of controlling costs, and ensuring that funds trickle down through the leagues, as players unable to get in to the roster at Premier League level have to find work lower down the leagues and so on. Young talent invariably has to start lower down and work their way up - transferring all the way - so the money flows down.

[Adz]

From what we have heard this means we have to cut our wage bill..........

Didn't Ling confirm our wage budget at the fan gathering after the sacking of Fletch? (Bloody hell that seems a long while ago now). He compared us to... was it Luton Town? Does anyone remember what number Ling gave for ours? I definitely think it was over £1.25m.

It does seem a little strange having everyone abide by the same hard limit. If we can afford a wage budget of over £1.25m based on income then why should we be stopped from having one? Surely a % figure based on the club's income would be fairer. I'm all for running clubs sustainably and trying to keep the leagues as open and competitive as possible but if a club at our level can generate three or four times as much as, say, Morecambe then it seems unfair to give us a handicap.

Other potential issues would relate to competitiveness for promoted sides. If you get promoted from League Two with a squad valued at no greater than £1.25m then you're going to have a hell of a lot more of a challenge levelling up to compete with League One clubs. If we assume we're currently spending £2.5m on wages then we'll be suffering a 50% cut in wage expenditure with the knock on effects that that will have to the quality and depth of our squad.

That's another issue. If we assume that we currently have a 25 man squad (ours is closer to 30 when you factor in the loanees) and we're spending £2.5m on wages then that works out to just short of £2k per player per week. If we cut our squad to 20 and have to keep wages down to £1.25m then not only is every player (average out) taking an £800 a week pay cut (without factoring in the youths making up the numbers) there'll also be 100/200 professional footballers out of work (who would have been playing League Two) alone. That's assuming that all 20 clubs have to prune between 5 and 10 senior pros from their wage bill.

I'm not saying that it isn't the right thing to do, it may be in the circumstances , but it does seem that the players will be taking a massive hit and I'm sure the player's union will have an opinion on the matter. This could shake up lower league football in some pretty significant ways. Will the better players be spread around more evenly, improving the over-all quality of this level of football? Will the better players migrate somewhere else where they can carry on getting the money they were used to? Will better players struggle to get contracts because cheap jack-of-all-trades are more cost effective. lots of questions.

219 staff, turnover of 3mm salaries at 4mm so if that 50% is true we must be paying 2.5mm for non playing staff. Salaries up 1mm yoy BTW.

Which mean playing staff = 1.5mm so we're not that far off the cap.

[Ronnie Hotdogs]

Will make clubs heavily reliant on free loans from championship and premiership clubs to bolster their squads. I wonder if that’s deliberate.

I agree that something needs to be done but this isn’t the way to do it.

[EastDerehamO]

Will make clubs heavily reliant on free loans from championship and premiership clubs to bolster their squads. I wonder if that’s deliberate.

I agree that something needs to be done but this isn’t the way to do it.

Agree.

I’d personally like to see a loan limit, the whole loan market has got out of control, the likes of Chelsea loaning out 40 odd players. If the EFL limited to (say) 2 loans max in and same out, with some emergency loan situation catered for, then it would feel better for the game – and the Premier clubs would lose the bulk loans options, and maybe more youngsters would see more opportunities at the lower league clubs, which wouldn’t be a bad thing.

[JimbO]

I thought I heard ours was in the region of 1.7 million.

Think the clubs might agree to this in some form maybe not at those figures though.

Although someone always try's to circumnavigate them like Saracens in the Rugby Premiership

[Rich Tea Wellin]

I think something needs to happen, eventually in the premier league too, but that wont happen!

This method also would penalise us because we are in London. We would have the same budget as say Grimsby, but rent and expenses in London are probably double. Why would a player want to come here for the same money as going somewhere where they would save 30-40% on bills?

[Eat The Rich]

I think something needs to happen, eventually in the premier league too, but that wont happen!

This method also would penalise us because we are in London. We would have the same budget as say Grimsby, but rent and expenses in London are probably double. Why would a player want to come here for the same money as going somewhere where they would save 30-40% on bills?

Because who the feck wants to live in Grimsby?

[Beradogs]

Will there be a limit to the amount of Embletons any one club is allowed? We have been operating well above our allocated amount for a long while. It has always amazed me that the league has not stepped in and started to ship a few of the cousins and aunts/uncles to other clubs.

[Disoriented]

Time to scrap the DOF role then.

[Max B Gold]

Will there be a limit to the amount of Embletons any one club is allowed? We have been operating well above our allocated amount for a long while. It has always amazed me that the league has not stepped in and started to ship a few of the cousins and aunts/uncles to other clubs.

Does this rule also apply to Lingletons?

[ComeOnYouOs]

I think something needs to happen, eventually in the premier league too, but that wont happen!

This method also would penalise us because we are in London. We would have the same budget as say Grimsby, but rent and expenses in London are probably double. Why would a player want to come here for the same money as going somewhere where they would save 30-40% on bills?

Because who the feck wants to live in Grimsby?

Having been to Grimsby half a dozen times, I completely agree....who the feck would want to live there?

[DuvB]

A salary cap that doesn't take into account the cost of property and cost of living in London and the South East would be totally inequitable.

[LittleMate]

Will make clubs heavily reliant on free loans from championship and premiership clubs to bolster their squads. I wonder if that’s deliberate.

I agree that something needs to be done but this isn’t the way to do it.

Agree.

I’d personally like to see a loan limit, the whole loan market has got out of control, the likes of Chelsea loaning out 40 odd players. If the EFL limited to (say) 2 loans max in and same out, with some emergency loan situation catered for, then it would feel better for the game – and the Premier clubs would lose the bulk loans options, and maybe more youngsters would see more opportunities at the lower league clubs, which wouldn’t be a bad thing.

I think the loan limit is coming (via FIFA?) to stop clubs like Chelsea harvesting players.

Whilst they are at it they should stop cross border youth/young signings. There are plenty of 15-18 year olds from other european and farther flung places milling around in youth and then U23 leagues.

[Dohnut]

I think something needs to happen, eventually in the premier league too, but that wont happen!

This method also would penalise us because we are in London. We would have the same budget as say Grimsby, but rent and expenses in London are probably double. Why would a player want to come here for the same money as going somewhere where they would save 30-40% on bills?

Absolutely sensible observation.

[Dohnut]

I think something needs to happen, eventually in the premier league too, but that wont happen!

This method also would penalise us because we are in London. We would have the same budget as say Grimsby, but rent and expenses in London are probably double. Why would a player want to come here for the same money as going somewhere where they would save 30-40% on bills?

Because who the feck wants to live in Grimsby?

Having been to Grimsby half a dozen times, I completely agree....who the feck would want to live there?

Because people playing for Grimsby can choose to live in the better parts of the area and travel in. I doubt Orient players live in Leyton.

[Rich Tea Wellin]

I don't really get how a hard cap like this is different to FFP they have today. Whatever system you use, unless you close loopholes (like sponsoring a brick) and put in clear enforcement guidelines, it's all a bit of a farce anyway.

Agree with the part about automatic points deductions for not paying wages though. I'd give clubs 1 life every 3 years because sometimes these things happen for various reasons but after that deduct 6 points every time they are late.

[StillSpike]

I don't really get how a hard cap like this is different to FFP they have today. Whatever system you use, unless you close loopholes (like sponsoring a brick) and put in clear enforcement guidelines, it's all a bit of a farce anyway.

Agree with the part about automatic points deductions for not paying wages though. I'd give clubs 1 life every 3 years because sometimes these things happen for various reasons but after that deduct 6 points every time they are late.

No loophole with a strict limit on the number of players a team can have registered. The FA hold the registrations, so it's easy to police, and the penalties are already in the rules for playing an unregistered player. Limit League 2 teams to 20, League 1 to 25, Championship to 30 and EPL to 35 - to pick some arbitrary limits. Players in or out on loan count toward the total, players medically certificated out for greater than 2 or 3 months, say, can be credited back so you can get emergency cover.