Why a salary cap will not work
Tuesday, 14 Oct 2008 11:50
Football 'cannot adopt an American-style salary cap'
It seems like the credit crunch is affecting everything.
Mortgages rates are still high, the price of food and petrol is more expensive and high street spending is not what it used to be. Luckily, sport will always be there.
Well, perhaps not.
After the announcement that English football was haemorrhaging money, one of the strangest proposals put forward was the adoption of an American-style salary cap.
The Football Association's chairman Lord Triesman noted this week that clubs in England owed £3 billion altogether. As purse strings tighten and every other oft-used phrase about the current financial climate is rolled out after each slight change to the economy, it may be the scalps of football teams and not estate agents or investment banks that are the next to face the axe.
It seemed that Lord Triesman did not want to get involved in the salary cap argument, adding that "people at the clubs are the only people who are going to be able to judge" the worthiness of the idea.
Having watched sport for most of my life, I know that whichever game it may be, this usually ends in tears.
Some were thrilled by the idea. For example, Blackburn chairman John Williams said that the concept of a salary cap "really excites" him, knowing full well that Blackburn would be one of the better-off clubs after any proposed restrictions wiped out all teams above them in the current Premier League standings, aside from Hull City perhaps.
Jamie Carragher actually said something quite reasonable, stating that he was all for the idea and it should be brought in to help the clubs. Then again, as a first-teamer that is one of the very few not to be largely affected by Rafa Benitez's rotation system, it might be easier for him to say.
I don't think the recent Abu Dhabi consortium that took over Manchester City were consulted and Roman Abramovich has sat back without comment. I doubt they would find much to agree with in the concept.
Still, it wouldn't surprise me if someone pointed to the American system of capping as a great inspiration for a new system to combat the credit squeeze.
Either way, I hope they don't. They would be very silly indeed to even think the US scheme would work over here.
The salary cap is an institution in America. Purely basing themselves on the notion of a fair game, the US represents itself through sport in a way many wished they carried themselves internationally. Fundamentally, the main reason that it flourishes is due to the collegiate system.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is the building block on which sport is based in America.
It feeds money to over 1,200 universities in America to develop the talents of students. Each sport - baseball, American football, ice hockey, basketball and, of course, football (soccer) is provided with the best talent after players complete courses at university. Each sporting franchise then has a draft in its off-season to pick the best available talent.
For example, the National Football League (NFL) - in other words, the American football organisation - believes in an overall salary cap where players are dished out with a minimum wage based on age and experience. Of course, they still get more depending on ability.
This year's NFL salary cap is around $116 million (£68,000,000) and has a concrete floor - a minimum wage boundary - of around 85 per cent of the total.
People love to criticise the American system without having ever sat down to consider it, in the traditional xenophobic sports fan fashion that England can be quite well known for.
However, it is arguably one of the best in the world. Sadly, it just would not work here.
Professional leagues are founded on age - something our own one isn't. With this season already fielding its youngest professional player - 15-year-old Reuben Noble-Lazarus at Barnsley - it would be the hardest thing to keep a track of, or judge impartially, as the anchor of age is not present.
Salary cap configuration would have to go on wages alone - something that concerns the greed of players, the undervaluation of clubs and a possible raft of "bonuses" on top of marked wages to make up original wages around a salary cap.
In a tougher system, big teams under a salary cap would have to either make players take wage cuts or drop all but a few big players, creating a club like that of Major League Soccer (MLS) in America, where one or two luxury players are allowed and the rest are on a set wage.
In a wonderful twist of irony, it is the British sport that is more capitalist and less fair, with Americans leading the way towards arguably a far fairer system.
However, with the MLS posting a relatively boring experience to the viewer more used to the Premier League, perhaps it is football as a sport that one could not introduce such a system to.
Either way, it's too late to try. Given that Fifa is a political battleground itself, and with subsidiary organisations such as Uefa and Concacaf, changes would have to be introduced across the board in order to keep fairness in competitions such as the Champions League.
In the true sense of English and European football, the idea will be bandied about for another couple of weeks and then largely forgotten about - after all, it's usually only the lower league teams that face problems and the FA would rather punish them even further than give them a hand in their financial situation.
Maybe it is a very cynical thing to say, but it seems that actions such as introducing a salary cap is only thought about when a so-called "real club" like those of the Premier League could be getting into trouble.
Matthew Gardner