The FA need force a Pay structure onto our teams. (IMHO)

Manlove is my forte · 13 May 2003 at 16:52

Is it just me or are footballers being well overpaid and becoming unnecessarily greedy?

If I was a top class professional footballer I would be happy at earning 1 million a year from the club

that works out at about 20k per week I would then get what ever sponsorship I need.

footballers playing at their best (and most valuable time) have between a 10 and 15 year career.

this equates to between 10 and 15 million minimum for a playing career.

lets then discuss a well paid office worker. getting 50K per year over the period of his career which currently is about 45 years which works out at 2.25 million.

This shows that a footballer earns more than enough to support himself to the end of his days with a more than comfortable lifestyle.

For this reason I think that the FA should put a cap on the amount our football teams are allowed to pay players. (this figure would obviously change with inflation)

The players currently earning more than this figure may keep their current wage until their next contract.

At first this will have a detrimental effect on the league. A lot of the big names will leave. So will most of the foreigners. But it will allow the teams to get out of the debt they are in. Making the teams stronger and allowing them to invest more money in youth training and scouting. The continental clubs that don't follow suit will find themselves in greater debt and will eventually go bankrupt.

Our new players will also be sought after by the European teams as they will be looking for players that get results whilst not costing much in wages.

We need to take the lead in this sort of policy. It will be a hard and bitter pill to swallow at first but it will lead to greater prosperity in our leagues.

There will be less of a worry for teams that get relegated.

Currently all of out teams are in Debt. if things do not change we wont have a football league.

Gilly · 13 May 2003 at 16:54

The thing is, this would then take away from the top clubs, that have the money and the success purely because they've built it up.

I think it's unfair to take away from the top clubs, though I agree something needs to be done to help out the lower clubs, I just don't agree that a forced payscale is the way forward

Manlove is my forte · 13 May 2003 at 17:06

Originally posted by Gilly
The thing is, this would then take away from the top clubs, that have the money and the success purely because they've built it up.

I think it's unfair to take away from the top clubs, though I agree something needs to be done to help out the lower clubs, I just don't agree that a forced payscale is the way forward

It didnt take you long to reply. Sometimes I wonder how you got 6k+ posts but now I know you must read well fast.

edit Just looked at your count 8K :eek:

Anyway. you are right the top teams will suffer most. But I would image that they would resign their contracts with their stars just before a pay structure change. Meaning that they would keep their current team. They could then focus on bringing in youth players and the such. Also if a foreign player was going to come into this country to play. but knew he was only going to get around 20k who would he rather get the 20k from man u or Tottenham?

The teams could easily make up the difference in players salary by encouraging sponsorship deals between companies and players.

Do you think Beckham would be so rich if he was a Southampton player? I don't. Being part of Man U has made him rich. If the big clubs work with and encourage companies to sponsor their players then the players will still make the big bucks.

I hear Real request half of the players sponsorship money. I think this is a bit unfair. but then I guess it is one way of recouping the costs of the wages. I think it would work better if teams did the opposite.

CliffyG · 13 May 2003 at 17:13

The only way it would work would be if it was enforced by FIFA throughout the world. The way football is at the moment i don't really think a wage cap is necesary though, many top clubs are in financial difficulties and the others that aren't are being more cautious than they would be. I'm pretty sure the rapid increase in wages from the last 3 - 4 seasons has levelled of now.

silverpaw · 13 May 2003 at 17:22

I blame Sky, followed by the Fa and Uefa.

Sky bought the rights to the Premiership (whatever the f that is :confused:

) they outbid their nearest competitors by a factor, purposely so they could dominate top flight football for years to come. The tv money is far more than Nationwide league clubs recieve. So immediately you have a gulf between Premierleague and leauge. Clubs being businesses think more income means more expenditure and growth, they buy players and pay them lots. They get relegated or do badly, oh dear.

Now Uefa, this bunch really bug me...

We now have two european competitions; the Champions League, and the Uefa cup. One means something and the competing clubs mint it, the other means jack **** and a big club can actually make a loss if they go out in the forst couple of rounds.

It used to be the case that there were three competitions and ALL of them mattered. The Cup Winners Cup should never have been scrapped, the European Championships should be a competition of the best in Europe, not the top 3 sides from Lithuania and every other EU country, or Israel ffs. :mad:

I don't think we need a wage cap, I think we need Uefa and the FA to go back to a logical form of competition and tv rights. Currently all the money goes to Man Utd, Arsena, Newcastle and whoever finishes in the other CL place. The money needs to be more intelligently split between teams qualifying for Europe. Bring back the three worth Euro competitions.

HangTime · 21 May 2003 at 16:48

Another problem with wage capping I suppose is that you end up with a lot of "underhand" payments - Free houses, shopping trips for the wife etc all paid for by the club; the modern day equivalent of the 10bob note stuffed in the players boot in the old days.

Jingo · 21 May 2003 at 17:30

if you would get paid the same to live in milan or liverpool, which would you choose?

[ASSE]Hinchy · 21 May 2003 at 17:35

no one told the clubs to pay the astronomical wages to the players. One club, I don't know which one, must have really wanted a top player, so gave him a huge wage. Then others caught onto the idea, so kept asking for these wages.

The clubs could quite easily have said no. I don't blame the FA, I don't blame FIFA, I don't blame the players - If you were a player and could get away with asking for wages like that, you would do!

The blame lies solely at the feet of the clubs that are careless enough to offer this money to the players.

HangTime · 21 May 2003 at 17:39

And the problem is compounded by the fact that the pay scale is relatively linear; I.e, if the creme de la creme get paid £40k+, then average players start asking for wages in comparison to that, e.g. £20k/week (whereas 10-15 years ago they might have been on £3k/week). I can remember the days when they talked about how ridiculous it would be for a footballer to be paid £20,000/week (1 million a year), now squad players get that much.

Ratty · 21 May 2003 at 18:32

i think they should stop clubs that are in debt from increasing wages and signing new players, rather that waiting for them to go into recivership.

Ratty

jailbird · 21 May 2003 at 19:00

How bout the players get rewarded for good play? I know you have goals bonuses, or clean sheets bonuses, but these are tiny compared with the basic wage. In my opinion, players like Beckham don't care 100% about the football any more, you don't get the feeling he actually wants to win matches. If the players were rewarded based on how well they played, the entertainment they gave the crowd, whether they won or not rather that just getting payed 100k a week for turning up to training and playing half-arsed every saturday then they couldn't be greedy cos we could just say 'you want more money? Play better!'.

tom_w · 21 May 2003 at 19:35

LCFC are leading the way with the new wage structure! You'll see, give it a few years and everybody will be doing the same. Performance related pay is the way forward.

GuruJockStrap · 21 May 2003 at 23:04

Are'nt the lower leagues bringing in a new law which says clubs can only spend x amount of their annual turnover on players wages?

JAzz · 21 May 2003 at 23:31

Originally posted by GuruJockStrap
Are'nt the lower leagues bringing in a new law which says clubs can only spend x amount of their annual turnover on players wages?

below 70% of their total turn over iirc

the g14 clubs will be doing this soon, bad news for arsenal coz their wages are like 67% of their total turnover :eek:

[ASSE]Hinchy · 21 May 2003 at 23:45

Originally posted by jailbird
How bout the players get rewarded for good play? I know you have goals bonuses, or clean sheets bonuses, but these are tiny compared with the basic wage. In my opinion, players like Beckham don't care 100% about the football any more, you don't get the feeling he actually wants to win matches. If the players were rewarded based on how well they played, the entertainment they gave the crowd, whether they won or not rather that just getting payed 100k a week for turning up to training and playing half-arsed every saturday then they couldn't be greedy cos we could just say 'you want more money? Play better!'.

Who's to decide how well he played? Someone might have played out of their skin but came up against someone better. Who's to say whether Beckham has a good or bad game? People argue all the time - "He had a good game!", "He had a bad game!". That system simply would not work in my opinion.

Spud21 · 21 May 2003 at 23:50

Originally posted by Ratty
i think they should stop clubs that are in debt from increasing wages and signing new players, rather that waiting for them to go into recivership.

Ratty

Agree totally. Coventry have just signed Andy Morrell fro Wrexham, even though they are 20 Million and some in debt. They should not be allowed to sign any players at all. It is their mess that they got themselfs into, and they should not be allowed to carry on as if nothing has happened, like another club from the midlands that greatly benifited by going into administration because their board were woefully inadequate, and spend 30 odd million on a stadium that they did not have, went into administration and have got the stadium fro around 10 million less. And now this team are in the prem.

Unless Wolves go up i know who i will want to finish bottom, one that has gained by being completely inept with their finances.

Jingo · 22 May 2003 at 11:51

Originally posted by jailbird
How bout the players get rewarded for good play? I know you have goals bonuses, or clean sheets bonuses, but these are tiny compared with the basic wage. In my opinion, players like Beckham don't care 100% about the football any more, you don't get the feeling he actually wants to win matches. If the players were rewarded based on how well they played, the entertainment they gave the crowd, whether they won or not rather that just getting payed 100k a week for turning up to training and playing half-arsed every saturday then they couldn't be greedy cos we could just say 'you want more money? Play better!'.

It would also mean that match bans for poor behaviour/discipline would be a lot more effective.

needs some work - but certainly i think that there should be a greater element of this in current pay structure - team salary caps are not the answer as we dont have an american league system.