There is potentially a future Premier League in which there are no financial controls – without any limit on spending, without any regulation of the size of commercial deals negotiated with entities under the same ownership – and the demolition of the current system by Manchester City’s legal challenges is certainly doing its best to hasten us there.
Go for it.
Because here’s the nasty little secret. All restrictions upon player salaries, budgets, sources of funds and all the rest, work to the advantage of the other owners in the league/system. Because that’s how cartels do work, in favour of the capitalists. Open, free, laissez faire, markets work in favour of the players.
So, open, free, laissez faire markets it is then. Right?
These restrictions are just the maximum wage imposed again. This time around it’s maximum wages, not wage, but the aim, intention and outcome is the same.
The ill-fated European Super League project would have gone a long way towards that goal.
However………. the Premier League’s “Big 6” permanent entries would have included City (hmmmm), Chelsea (oh dear), Spurs (oh dearie dear) and United (ROFLMAO).
I suppose the charges against City et al were some attempt to let air out of the bubble.
Well sod that, let it blow up.
The carnage. Lol.
Then perhaps we might get back to having the Big Match on Sunday afternoons with Orient v Gillingham and an AI generated Brian Moore.
Hell I might even buy a TV licence.
Well said Tim. And well said Martin Samuel in the Tiles, who has been saying it for decades. And shame on those ‘journalists’ who’ve decided their bread is buttered by the extant cartel and are writing things they know are not true. This article being masterpiece of the genre, describing an absolute denunciation as “a largely procedural” matter.
I am a Liverpool fan. The truth, the fact is though that the rules are designed to keep Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal at the top of the tree. And to hell with the greater good of the sport.
The other factor of course is Government and Parliament, who knows, just know that they can run this massively successful industry better than the industry itself. They both applied to pressure on the Premier League to draw up these rules and have support to the cartel applying them.
Tim and his fellows at the ASI have long reminded us that regulation favours the incumbent
I cannot think of a better example for future textbooks than this.
Otto @ 9.02, you can catch The Big Match revisited on Sky, complete with a real Brian Moore, mullets, balls that weighed half hundredweight, cries of ‘look out for the laces’ as a cross comes in and pitches that resemble the Somme. Oh, plus ‘proper’ tackling…..
Oh for the days when all soccer players’ wages were limited to £8 for a 37 weeks playing season and £6 for the 15 weeks close season.
asiaseen
Well, Richard Murphy and at least our parliamentarians would try to bring that back about if they can.
@Addolff
And no five minutes delay waiting for a decision from VAR.
“Because here’s the nasty little secret. All restrictions upon player salaries, budgets, sources of funds and all the rest, work to the advantage of the other owners in the league/system. Because that’s how cartels do work, in favour of the capitalists. Open, free, laissez faire, markets work in favour of the players.”
Except when the capitalists stitch up the entire league to be their own personal plaything, like they do in US sport. Which is where the PL will go if its allowed to become an unfettered free for all for the worlds billionaires and autocratic shithole wealth funds. There’s no way that the likes of the Arabs are going to allow their teams to be relegated out of the PL. Once there’s a majority of foreign owned super wealthy types they’ll vote to make the PL a closed league. No relegation to the Football League, no new entrants. And then they can control the what the players get paid, just as they do in the US with a salary cap.
Well, yes, that’s the reason to support continued promotion and relegation. The very thing which creates that effect. That’s why I shouted against the Rugby premiership becoming a closed shop all those years ago….
I don’t care about association football, but the proper code is trying to work out the way to go, and struggling.
We had some insight into how no salary cap might work in rugby when Saracens ignored it and won every game for about five years until someone decided to investigate.
If they did away with the cap in rugby you’d have about four competitive clubs and very few competitive games, and a few players driving round in brand new G Wagons and others in Mondeos (which happens now to an extent, it would just be more).
Yes, wealthy men should have the right to spend their money as they see fit, and yes players should be paid what they’re ‘worth’ – though this is already pretty much divorced from the value they bring through gate receipts and sponsorships, and would be totally so if eg Steve Lansdown was able to pay whatever he wanted to whomever he wanted.
But I suspect what would happen in the end is a breakaway *down* – ie sure, Bristol, you can pay Ellis Genge (or more likely Ox Nché) £3m pa but you can’t play against Gloucester, Exeter, Leicester, Northampton, Quins etc who have set up a new league with a salary cap (and a minimum cap, too ie you can’t pay more than x and less than y).
It’s not easy (in rugby, anyway) but it’s also not a simple or pure question of textbook economics.
There’s a guy calling himself “The Sports Economist” who wrote a whole book on exactly this point 15 to 20 years back.
It could even be true that without relegation etc is the way to have a comnpetitive league. But it will also be true, for the same reason, that this will increase the possibility of capitalist profits.
Don’t forget, economics isn’t saying “you should”. Rather, “if you do therefore”
Football has been at this point for decades. I’m sure there was once a time when “Man Utd” or “Liverpool” had some meaning, that they were the best lads from your city, the striker lived next door to your aunty or something and were taking on the heathens from the neighbouring place. Whatever meaning that had was gone long ago and it’s just absurd now, with Arabs owning clubs, managers and most of the squad from wherever on planet earth.
If people want to turn it into a ludicrous thing of the same half dozen clubs playing each other, so fucking what? It’s not food or shelter. Start a rival league if you think it’s shit. Find a field, paint some lines and goal posts and off you go.
“If people want to turn it into a ludicrous thing of the same half dozen clubs playing each other, so fucking what? It’s not food or shelter. Start a rival league if you think it’s shit. Find a field, paint some lines and goal posts and off you go.”
Why do you think that non league clubs can get healthy crowds these days? Because people are increasingly fed up with the PL prima donnas who are as you say from anywhere but the place they are supposed to be representing. Grass roots football is stronger in the UK than ever before.
It’s funny that about the only people who liked the Super League were non-European owners of the teams involved, and a bunch of fucking American hipsters who glommed onto one or another EPL team and think they’re the biggest soccer fans now. I remember telling one such fan a five or six years back that I couldn’t wait for the bubble to pop and Man City to wind up like Leeds. He responded that Leeds were doing well in the Championship and it looked like they might get promoted to the EPL. He obviously had no idea what I was referring to.
The North American coverage that seems only to care about the EPL, Real Madrid, and Barça is something that I don’t think has been good on the whole.
I’d like to understand the idea of a “supporter”. I mean, I find it understandable that wee boys “support” their local team – I did: the football was decent and the pies excellent. And then playing rugby started to consume my Saturdays and that was that.
But why do adults claim to be supporters? Isn’t it all a bit infantile? I like to watch the football highlights at the weekend but I don’t support anyone. I enjoy some teams more than others – currently Bournemouth are a good watch – and respect some coaches more than others – the Holy Ghost at Forest seems pretty good. But “support”? Not on your nelly.
And why, for God’s sake, do people support a team to which they have no connection e.g. our dear PM Sir Pink Blancmange claims to support the Arsenal – he grew up, insofar as he did so, in distant Surrey – and Prince Willie of Wales the Villa. What? At least Rishi’s support for Southampton was a genuine memory of boyhood. (As distinct from Toni Blair whose memories from childhood as a Newcastle supporter proved to be false. Of course.)
As I have been known to say the country would be immeasurably improved if some supporters vanished in a puff of smoke – I particularly have Rangers and Celtic in mind but should perhaps add Leeds too. Bloody troglodytes.
@dearieme
But why do adults claim to be supporters? Isn’t it all a bit infantile?
It adds a frisson to games, I suppose. I support Leicester (in rugby) for old historical reasons. I don’t *really* care if they win or lose, but if I go to a match – as my wife and I did with two Gloucester supporting friends at Kingsholm two or three weeks ago – it makes for a more enjoyable spectacle if you’re both watching the action and ribbing your mate (or, as it turned out, getting rubbed by your mate).
🙂 getting RIBBED by your mate
“Who will the Yankees play?”
As a young man, Gamecock was enthralled by the Canadian-American Challenge Cup, or Can-Am. It was a minimal rules, run-what-you-brung racing league. With the lid off the rules, amazing cars were produced. Races were thrilling!
Then Porsche introduced the 917/30 . . . the Series Killer. Perhaps the best racecar of all time. It was so good, it won every time. Every time. Withing two years, the series collapsed. No one wanted to go watch the Porsche win again.
The football league rules function to keep the sport somewhat competitive. They keep the league alive. “No rules, just right, no league.”
All I can say is if you’re mug enough to pay to see these teams perform (you can’t call it play) you deserve whatever you get – whatever it turns out to be.
That’s happened repeatedly in motor sport, Gamecock. We used to race in modified sports because blueprinting a car to run in production sports was so expensive it was the province of wealthy businesses. Then it happened to mod sports. Generally what happens is someone creates a new shoestring formula which people have fun in until that gets taken over by the money, so rinse & repeat. Don’t know what the current one is for UK motorsport.
Interested
Wimbledo midweek games in the past would probably have counted as “consenting adults in private.”
🙂
Opposite happened in US, too. NASCAR controlled car rules so tightly that it was no longer stock cars, nor racing. There hasn’t been a stock car in NASCAR since 1975. They have broken races down in stages/heats. Pit play used to be a big part of the sport.
The points awarded incentivize finishing, not winning. It’s placin’, not racin’.
I was a fan til 1988. It got too ridiculous.
“!Why do you think that non league clubs can get healthy crowds these days? Because people are increasingly fed up with the PL prima donnas !”
Non-league is good when the the crowds are good. I go maybe 4 or 5 times in a year. It does suffer from the fact half the team is usually on loan from someone higher up, and even if you do happen to sign someone young who does well then you’ve still got them till the end of the season max. If you sign a decent journeyman, they are just as mercenary as a PL prima donna. For the same reasons- its their job and their career is short. ( Last year I was impressed by the new centre forward after 3 cracking games causing all sorts of problems. He was 30 something so high hopes that he was keepable. Next time i went 3 months later, he’d signed mid season for a team in the same division/league..Reason: to reduce his commute by 30 mins.!) The regular fans are used to it of course and i suppose it naturally becomes a signifier of how dedicated you are keeping up with all the comings and goings.
The point that should be driven home to everyone pontificating in the pub is that ownership of a football club is a rich man’s game and always will be. The thing you need to ensure is said rich man spends his own money. Yes everyone worries that the red team down the road will get a richer sugar daddy but should be countered by the fact that warm feeling that he’ll never make money out of it (except to flog to a richer man with more to spunk).
FWIW i think they should ban sovereign wealth fund investments because it risks dragging us into diplomatic problems when the 3rd son of the Sheikh’s favourite wife bankrupts / ruins or involves in some scandal, a beloved Club, or just as likely refuses to spunk even more dosh despite the baying mob’s demands.
Hallowed Be,
“FWIW i think they should ban sovereign wealth fund investments because it risks dragging us into diplomatic problems when the 3rd son of the Sheikh’s favourite wife bankrupts / ruins or involves in some scandal, a beloved Club, or just as likely refuses to spunk even more dosh despite the baying mob’s demands.”
But the correct response to this is “grow the fuck up” at the mob. Or “put your hands in your pockets and make up for it”. Maybe stop attaching yourself emotionally to a bunch of blokes kicking a ball around.
If all the posh girls stop wanting to sing opera and the likes of Getty stop throwing it a subsidy, I’ll have a shrug and either have to put up with spending a bit more money or stop going.
My old local team in Munich was 1860. I still follow their lack of progress in the German 3rd Div.
They had for a while a supposed Jordanian millionaire as their sugar daddy. He went off in a huff, because he could not own 100% of the club. Sorry mate, rules is rules – any investor can only own 50% + 1 shares in a club.
I’ve always liked that approach, but it will leave Jerry football brutally exposed in the future, with only Bayern able to compete for the best players. ( And they only dominate thanks to crooked practices ).
Western Bloke
well yes, quite, but of course the reason sovereign wealth investment is so dangerous is because there’s every likelihood of a baying mob in the “Sovereign” ‘s own country who might one day object to 3rd son having spunked all “their” money. And that mob may actually have a point. In fact it may be a very pointy point.
I was under the impression the The Sports Economist had knocked the blog on the head years ago. And, was a yank, so lots of stuff about US municipalities paying for stadia with crowding out, et cetera.
Anyway, minor technical hitch;
“Because that’s how cartels do work, in favour of the capitalists. Open, free, laissez faire, markets work in favour of the players.”
Doesn’t appear to have matched reality since the creation of the PL. FFP/PSR are relatively new, and might be having an effect. Ditching APT (itself relatively new) would work in favour of existing (some) owners, but likely only those who are not looking purely for a return upon their financial capital.
Yes, years back. But a major point. Those US sports leagues. Bo relegation cartels, this means profits are possible. As opposed to soccer in Europe, all hte cash flows through to hte players.
I’m not sure the comparison is entirely valid; number of PL (or La Liga, or Serie A teams) – 20. NFL/NBA : 32/30. NFL/NBA don’t really operate in a global market for players – so the pool is limited to the US – maxes out at (say) 5% of the male adult population. PL etc, have a much larger available pool. Gets worse when looking at squad sizes for footie/NBA/NFL.
On the face of it, NBA/NFL highest wage is on the order of 3x the PL’s; I’d assume average wage is about the same, but that may not be the case. PL average may be significantly higher.
Then, there’s the Collective Bargaining Agreements. The PFA has/had some ability to stick a thumb on a lever. Then there’s the draft.
(I may have broken Chrome again, so apols. if duplicate)
I’m not sure the comparison is entirely valid; number of PL (or La Liga, or Serie A teams) – 20. NFL/NBA : 32/30. NFL/NBA don’t really operate in a global market for players – so the pool is limited to the US – maxes out at (say) 5% of the male adult population. PL etc, have a much larger available pool. Gets worse when looking at squad sizes for footie/NBA/NFL.
On the face of it, NBA/NFL highest wage is on the order of 3x the PL’s; I’d assume average wage is about the same, but that may not be the case. PL average may be significantly higher.
Then, there’s the Collective Bargaining Agreements. The PFA has/had some ability to stick a thumb on a lever. Then there’s the draft.
But, footie’s administrators enforce a cartel anyway…
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