The Communist Manifesto - Michel Platini

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Herro You

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Platini calls for salary cap
Uefa chief wary of financial problems

Uefa president Michel Platini believes a salary cap needs to be introduced into football for the good of the game.

The topic of football finances has been debated in recent days with Football Association chairman Lord Triesman claiming English clubs currently owe an estimated ?3billion in debt.

Triesman is pushing the idea of a salary cap to try and safeguard the futures of a number of clubs with the fear that the current economic crisis could see some teams go to the wall.

Platini has added his voice to the debate and believes a salary cap is a necessity to safeguard the game.

However, the Frenchman insists a maximum level on wages will not happen for some time.

"We have to speak about the number of contracts in the clubs, we can speak about salary but I am not an expert, I am an expert of football of the game," Platini told Sky Sports News.
Necessary
"The rest we have to learn. We have to go slowly and to look at what we can do, but it is necessary for the good of football."

League Managers' Association chief executive, Richard Bevan believes a salary cap in football is not the answer to the financial problems.

Some other sports have successfully implemented a salary cap, but Bevan says it will not work in football.

"Too many people feel that salary caps is really actually about wage caps and that is actually illegal in Europe," said Bevan.

"Rugby League and Rugby Union are two exceptions because they were in financial difficulties and people were keen to move into salary caps, but that is not the answer.



Duh, Triesman is a former communist!  Why oh why are the interests of football being represented by a man who's interest is not football (Platini).  Honestly, nothing good has come out of this man ever since he was elected.  Please, bring back Lennart Johannson and leave the free market alone!

The only clubs with huge debts are the biggest clubs (big 4) anyway, who are run like companies, so a little debt never hurt anyone.  All Manchester has to do is sign a Chinese international, tour China, sell 100 million shirts and there you go, problem solved.

 
I am for salary caps in football.  Even as a supporter of a large club like United, I hate all the big spending on players. 

There is one main concern, and that's the huge gap between teams within the same league.  The only way to not have a salary cap is to have a Super League.  The top European teams in a league of their own (based on turnover rates). 

Look what happened in Italy.  Serie A is breaking away from Serie B because the money and tv deals are not there for the smaller clubs, so how are they suppose to compete in top flight? 

One more thing...  This can limit teams from having 25 starters, ie Chelsea. 
 
I am all for (1) caps on the amount of foreign players and (b) as you said, limits on the size of squads. 

However a salary cap is insane.  It will do more damage to football than what is happening now.  Tell me this, how can you regulate this problem:
- C.Ronaldo's contract (assuming there is a cap in place) is performance-based and receives 200k for every goal he scores.  How can you cap this?  You can't exactly put in an estimate or budget, this isn't a business!
 
There is no need for performance based contracts.  They are as crappy as sales based on commission only.  Why give a player a bonus for playing his role on a team?

Take the salary cap out if you wanna create a super league, where rich teams and rich owners do whatever they like.  These rich owners are worse for the game of football than a salary cap.  You think any of these billionaires would care about soccer if they couldn't buy any player they wanted, just to sell jerseys?
 
jonadona said:
There is no need for performance based contracts.  They are as crappy as sales based on commission only.  Why give a player a bonus for playing his role on a team?

Take the salary cap out if you wanna create a super league, where rich teams and rich owners do whatever they like.  These rich owners are worse for the game of football than a salary cap.  You think any of these billionaires would care about soccer if they couldn't buy any player they wanted, just to sell jerseys?
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Um, my point is that that's what a club can do to easily circumnavigate the cap.  Surely you can't just ban a performance based contract (which would include a base salary as well), how illegal is that.  Footballers deserve all the rights us working people get, regardless of whether anyone thinks they are overpaid.

Can I also ask this:
Who is overpaid - C.Ronaldo, who is literally a magician on the ball, and gets say 200,000 pounds per week, or Paul Dichov, who is a poor excuse for a human being, and probably gets 20,000 pounds per week?

Then answer this - who will actuallybe affected by the cap?
 
Salary cap does not meant that you will make more or less.  That's the beauty of it.  You have to learn how manage player's salaries.  This is not a new idea.  It's been done in American sports for a while. 
 
jonadona said:
Salary cap does not meant that you will make more or less.  That's the beauty of it.  You have to learn how manage player's salaries.  This is not a new idea.  It's been done in American sports for a while. 
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I know, hence the vomit that builds up in my mouth when this idea gets touted for football
 
Herro You said:
I know, hence the vomit that builds up in my mouth when this idea gets touted for football
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Let's not be mistaken that the US markets sporting like no other.  Football is a business.  A cap would make teams more competitive, not a fight for the title between two teams with 18 other crappy ones on the sidelines.  I'm not referring to the EPL.
 
jonadona said:
Let's not be mistaken that the US markets sporting like no other.  Football is a business.  A cap would make teams more competitive, not a fight for the title between two teams with 18 other crappy ones on the sidelines.  I'm not referring to the EPL.
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I don't get what you mean here, but let me take a stab.  You're saying that a cap makes things more competitive - yes it does, but in relative terms.  With a cap, we won't see the smaller teams get better and closer to the top teams.  Rather, we will see the top teams get dragged down to their level.  That's why it's such a bad solution - in fact, it's a communist type solution - instead of reducing income inequality by helping the poor, you reduce it by making the rich poorer, and in the end absolute standards drop while relative standards give you the illusion that you have made a difference.  That just ain't football - whereas its perfect for plastic gimmics like NFL, NHL and so forth, including our Australian sports like NRL & to a lesser extent AFL.
 
Honestly, there is enough talented players to go around to make all the teams better.  Why do you think that there will only be one good player on each team?  That's unheard of.  Better players make those around them better.  So I don't even agree at all that the lower teams would drag down the competition.  Let's not make this political.  NO ONE WILL BE POOR.  That's why they have unions for players, to protect them.  Let's not act as if they are going to get raped and thrown on the side of the road.

By the way, find any country that has more than 2-3 major sports that are profitable globally.  This is not about the salary cap, but the dig you take at the NHL, NFL, MLB, and NBA. 
 
jonadona said:
Honestly, there is enough talented players to go around to make all the teams better.  Why do you think that there will only be one good player on each team?  That's unheard of.  Better players make those around them better.  So I don't even agree at all that the lower teams would drag down the competition.  Let's not make this political.  NO ONE WILL BE POOR.  That's why they have unions for players, to protect them.  Let's not act as if they are going to get raped and thrown on the side of the road.

By the way, find any country that has more than 2-3 major sports that are profitable globally.  This is not about the salary cap, but the dig you take at the NHL, NFL, MLB, and NBA.   
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I agree just take a look at the Toronto teams. The all make money and none are poor.
 
Mate, there aren't any sports in the world besides football that are profitable outside of the USA. 

I am not trying to be political or anything like that, I am just comparing this to the idea of socialism because it has direct parallels.  Platini is just trying to appease the many small associations that he convinced to vote for him so he can stay in the job - he's just worried about his own skin.  Ever since he opened his big mouth he's been on a personal crusade to take down English football.

And whoa whoa wait a sec, what am I saying - do American sports have a salary cap?  My goodness, it must be at like $200m per year!
 
Can I just point this out - Platini is whinging about the EPL clubs having about 3bn pounds in debt.  LOL.  Where has this debt come from?
- 800m by Glazer merely to buy Manchester
- 300-500m for Arsenal to build Emirates
- 500m or possibly more for Liverpool to finance their new stadium

That leaves less than half of it to be shared by 17 clubs, two of which are owned by billionaires who never have to worry about debt.  So which part of this debt comes from wages?  Are you telling me that over 1bn of this debt comes merely from wages?  Surely transfer fees and other capital expenditures for a substantial part of this.

Why not just cap transfers?





 
lol  Transfer fees?  Where do I start on those?  It's like OWNING the players, right? With a cap, that will change.  You buy out the contract, depending on the terms.
 
Herro You said:
Can I just point this out - Platini is whinging about the EPL clubs having about 3bn pounds in debt.  LOL.  Where has this debt come from?
- 800m by Glazer merely to buy Manchester
- 300-500m for Arsenal to build Emirates
- 500m or possibly more for Liverpool to finance their new stadium

That leaves less than half of it to be shared by 17 clubs, two of which are owned by billionaires who never have to worry about debt.  So which part of this debt comes from wages?  Are you telling me that over 1bn of this debt comes merely from wages?  Surely transfer fees and other capital expenditures for a substantial part of this.

Why not just cap transfers?
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It was on FSN that Chelsea and ManU themselves make up about $2b in debt.
 
jonadona said:
lol  Transfer fees?  Where do I start on those?  It's like OWNING the players, right? With a cap, that will change.  You buy out the contract, depending on the terms.
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Yeah, an average player in Spain has a transfer clause fee of about 100m pounds, they'd have to change the contract, which then would be the same thing as transfer fees.
 
Exactly, buying out the contract would BECOME the transfer fee.  With transfers in football, clubs agree a fee to release the player from his contract, so basically there is very little difference there.
 
Uefa should just be glad with the money the EPL make them.

Platini's lucky he was a good footballer, because he's s*** at what he's doing now.
 
You won't have those clauses with a cap.  You guys sure love clubs being taken over by billionaires.  I for one was against the United take over from the beginning.  I'm against billionaires taking over clubs just to make huge profits.  Why can't guys grasp that this will stop when there is a cap.  That would also include revenue sharing.

 
I haven?t read the whole thread, just breezed through, so I?ll just give my opinion on a few points...

1) The ?3bn debt that Platini is referring to includes ?350m for Arsenal?s stadium, ?800m odd that the Glazers put against Old Trafford when they bought United, The amount Liverpool has borrowed and is looking to borrow to finance a new stadium and also includes the ?750m-ish that Abramhovic has put into Chelsea, although this isn?t owed to a financial institution, it still needs to be addressed as not many teams are able to invest ?750m into a squad without going bust. So when Platini says teams using debt to be successful he is referring to the likes of Chelsea, who have a rich owner willing to spend millions of his own money to win trophies.

2) The Salary caps that would be enforced would limit a team to a certain amount that they would be able to spend per season on playing staff and would have no bearing on transfer fees. It not right to say how much a team can pay for player X or Y. By enforcing a salary cap, players will then have to resort to basing their decisions on signing for a club a little more on footballing reasons as opposed to monetary ones, as with a cap in place teams will all be able to offer a similar wage to the player, and the decision to be made will be on where the player wants to play, not on a team offering him ?50k a week more than the rest.

3) The idea of minimum fee release clauses is a good one, and one I think should be enforced into all leagues, meaning that all players must have a release clause like La Liga does. It?s beneficial as it stops players and clubs interested in signing players from being held to ransom. However, combating the issue of stupid min fee clauses being inserted into contracts is difficult. (I.e. Raul?s min fee release clause at one point was ?184m). However, it?s impossible to put a value on a player, as it fluctuates with age, form, injuries etc...

4) Performance related clauses however, are not necessary.  Especially when a player is on an astronomical basic wage, such as C. Ronaldo, Lampard, Gerrard, etc. Putting a price ceiling or a cut off point when performance related bonuses can be inserted into a contract may work. (E.g. if a player earns ?50k or less per week, then goal, assist bonuses are allowed to be included to a maximum level. If a player earns ?50,001 or more, then performance bonuses cannot be inserted into the contract, otherwise it will still end up that players make their decisions ultimately on who is offering more money.)

Overall, I think that a salary cap should be put into place in order to create competition within the leagues as opposed to the ?Big 4? + 2 or 3 and the rest of the league, with regards to the Premiership...

It?s not even too difficult to put a cap in place, as final league standings could be taken as a benchmark to what a team?s salary cap should be for the following season.

So, something along the lines of this...

Top 4 finish = ?200m
5 ? 8 = ?150m
9 ? 11 = ?120m
12 ? 14 = ?90m
15 ? 17 = ?70m
18 ? 20 = ?50m
 
But the problem with having different salary caps for different teams is that it will still leave a big gap between the top and bottom teams (competitive wise). 

Do football players have a separate union than UEFA? 
 
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