Soccer

» SimonMelville - British soccer's dodgy dealings

In response to British soccer's dodgy dealings posted by BrentSedo:
The salary cap idea comes up every so often but is usually dismissed because a) it's assumed clubs would get around it somehow and b) it is against EU anti-trust law.

While (a) is a credible threat to any salary cap, (b) seems less secure as an argument because the top division of Rugby League in Britain has a salary cap. Although Rugby League is far smaller than football, the amount of money sloshing around that game is not chicken feed. For all I know, there may be simlar rules for other sports across Europe.

Also, the third and fourth divisions in England have a rule that salaries cannot account for more than 60% of club turnover -- which could be argued as a restraint on trade but seems a sensible ruling to fans and chairmen alike.

Yes, once a transfer fee is agreed between the two clubs you still have to pay the players salary -- up to £100,000 a week for the best paid players. And then you have their bonuses -- not just for winning trophies, but for scoring goals (if they are a striker), keeping clean sheets (if they are a goalkeeper) and even appearance bonuses!

The general relationship between salary and transfer fee is: the better the player, the higher the transfer fee, the higher the salary. But with the EU "Bosman ruling" in 1995 (a European version of the Curt Flood case in the States, I'm led to believe) players can wait until their contracts finish (which can only be a maximum of 5 years now) and move with no transfer fee paid at all -- Michael Ballack to Chelsea from Bayern Munich is a recent example. But some of the transfer fee the buying club saves usually gets redistributed to the player and his agent!

Salaries for low-ranking Premiership players will still be pretty high -- the average yearly salary for a Premiership player is £676,000 (C$1.4m)

More info at this Guardian article: http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Stor...

-- posted by SimonMelville