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Salary Cap in Scottish Leagues


Pans Jambo

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With League's 1 & 2 in England voting in a salary cap of £2.5M & £1.5M respectively (see link below), and the Championship considering an £18M salary cap, do you think something similar should be considered for the Scottish leagues?

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/12044401/league-one-and-league-two-clubs-vote-for-salary-caps

 

Supposing its set to:

£10M for the Premier

£2M for the Championship

£1M for Div 1

£250K for Div 2

 

I think that would be more financially sensible and ensure clubs dont overspend (of course the caveat is that Ross County or Hamilton or Kilmarnock etc. dont even turn over £10M but there could also be a ratio of earning to salary imposed (I know there already is one but Dundee Utd seemed to get away with ignoring it).

 

I think the leagues would be far more competetive.

 

Opinions?

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Just now, davemclaren said:

Is it legal?

Good question Dave. The thing is, the leagues in England voted in favour of it so it's a self imposed ruling. 

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davemclaren
Just now, Pans Jambo said:

Good question Dave. The thing is, the leagues in England voted in favour of it so it's a self imposed ruling. 

Interesting. Surprised by that. 

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kingantti1874

Starting in 2 years aye fine.. Celtic would torpedo it anyway.

 

i think a salary cap relative to the turnover (Excluding prize money)  of a club is a fairer way and much more likely to get off the ground.

 

50% of turnover can be used for player salaries 

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Scottish league one:£10

                             Two: £5

 

might push a couple of clubs over the edge 

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1 minute ago, Agentjambo said:

Anything that possibly closes the gap between the old firm and the rest is a non starter. 

We (the majority of Scottish clubs although not all of them) really are "parochial" and "subservient" to those two. Its killed any competition dead! 

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1 minute ago, Pans Jambo said:

We (the majority of Scottish clubs although not all of them) really are "parochial" and "subservient" to those two. Its killed any competition dead! 

Scottish football will never ever prosper or meet its potential due to the ugly sisters and west coast bias from media... They have totally sucked the life out of Scottish football as a whole not just the SPL. 

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John Findlay
29 minutes ago, davemclaren said:

Is it legal?

They have in Superleague, Rugby league and also the Premiership rugby, rugby union. 

Up here the two uglies would never go for it.

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23 minutes ago, John Findlay said:

They have in Superleague, Rugby league and also the Premiership rugby, rugby union. 

Up here the two uglies would never go for it.

Probably needs a big shift like 3 -4 premier clubs and half a dozen or so other league clubs going into admin or "oot the gemme" altogether for any change to be considered sadly.

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51 minutes ago, davemclaren said:

Interesting. Surprised by that. 

Think the key is that the cap is at club level rather than player level. So no individual player has a restriction on the wages they can earn.

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48 minutes ago, kingantti1874 said:

Starting in 2 years aye fine.. Celtic would torpedo it anyway.

 

i think a salary cap relative to the turnover (Excluding prize money)  of a club is a fairer way and much more likely to get off the ground.

 

50% of turnover can be used for player salaries 

Hamilton would have 50% of f..k all........😅

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David McCaig
59 minutes ago, Pans Jambo said:

With League's 1 & 2 in England voting in a salary cap of £2.5M & £1.5M respectively (see link below), and the Championship considering an £18M salary cap, do you think something similar should be considered for the Scottish leagues?

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/12044401/league-one-and-league-two-clubs-vote-for-salary-caps

 

Supposing its set to:

£10M for the Premier

£2M for the Championship

£1M for Div 1

£250K for Div 2

 

I think that would be more financially sensible and ensure clubs dont overspend (of course the caveat is that Ross County or Hamilton or Kilmarnock etc. dont even turn over £10M but there could also be a ratio of earning to salary imposed (I know there already is one but Dundee Utd seemed to get away with ignoring it).

 

I think the leagues would be far more competetive.

 

Opinions?

£2.5m seems staggeringly low in League 1, is there a dispensation for clubs relegated from the Championship?

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davemclaren
4 minutes ago, Sooperstar said:

Think the key is that the cap is at club level rather than player level. So no individual player has a restriction on the wages they can earn.

👍👍

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Just now, David McCaig said:

£2.5m seems staggeringly low in League 1, is there a dispensation for clubs relegated from the Championship?

I dont know mate. Perhaps it seems low because its been ridiculous up until now. Funny how normal ridiculous can be after a period of time!

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1 hour ago, davemclaren said:

Is it legal?


Yes, technically it’s a rule of the competition and just a budget restriction so doesn’t impinge on employment law.

 

It’ll not make a huge difference long term as the money will be moved to transfer fees and signing on bonuses with clubs being sly and paying for houses, cars etc, wife is employed as a club ambassador on £x per week but isn’t ever allocated anything to do etc

 

Always ways around things, say a club only have 1k per week of cap space for the new season but a target wants 2k, the club may have a senior player retiring at the end of the season then they can structure the targets wages so he gets 1k in year one but he then gets 3k in year 2

Edited by Ribble
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Tommy Brown

As stated by others, nothing that threatens the dominance of the ugly sisters has any chance of succeeding in Scotland.

 

2nd ECL place will pacify Rangers for a couple of years. They just hope the can catch the vile lot from the east end.

 

Not enough people care enough for the rest, we are there to make up the numbers and should know our place.

 

Depressing, eh?

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LarrysRightFoot

It’s one of a number of things that Scottish and World football should be looking at to ensure competition and sporting integrity.

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It would be appropriate to implement a salary cap based on club income so that a club with a bigger income can spend appropriately and organic growth is rewarded. The caveat should be that clubs must have no debts. 

 

Balancing the books should be an achievable objective of clubs and rules should dictate if one year has resulted in debt then the year after it must be eliminated to avoid overspend.

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Whilst I believe wage caps are necessary in football for a number of reason I don’t believe it should be imposed on some leagues in a country and not in others also can someone shed any light on how it works for a relegated club, I believe they are talking with Championship clubs about bringing in a wage cap of 18m how would a premier league club get down to this after relegation or how would a championship teams get down to 2.5m from 18m? Would they be given a period to come into line with the league over 2/3 season 

 

 

I think a cap on debt to turnover would be a better way to work it, this would naturally mean clubs would have to cut their wage budget and other things to stay within the agreed limits 

Edited by campbell
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Allowayjambo1874

A salary cap has been introduced in England’s lower divisions because the clubs are technically trading whilst insolvent due to wages to turnover ratio being over 100%. 
 

For all the ills of our game pretty much all clubs wages to turnover % is 60-70%. We collectively got our financial shit together over the last ten years. So from a financial perspective Scotland’s clubs do not need to impose a restriction. It definitely would help close the gap between everyone and Celtic if there was a cap but the argument (particularly from a weegie centric media) would be that the leagues standard would lowered.

 

Anyway Dungcaster would never get permission from Lawell so non-starter.

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Not necessarily against a cap but wondering if it's fair to have different caps for different divisions. Scenario I'm thinking about is for the relegated teams, would it make it harder to retain your squad and try to bounce straight back up? Would you be forced to sell on your best players for less than their value as you can't afford to pay them? That kind of thing would need to be though through. Think about it in our situation this season, we might have to clear out the whole squad (some may be happy with that) but not be able to sign any decent players even though we can afford them. 

Edited by Anything2
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Unsurprisingly the PFA in England aren’t in favour and have stated this is both illegal and unenforceable.  I remember Tommy Docherty telling tales about his time at Preston when there was a maximum wage in place.  If they won on the Saturday all the players would play the owner at snooker on the Sunday with a £20 bet on the game and he would “lose” to each player effectively topping their wages up.  Other clubs came up with similar schemes to pay players under the table, everyone knew it was going on but nothing was done about it.  This scheme would have to be very tightly monitored or some clubs will take advantage...
 

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John Findlay
42 minutes ago, Cade said:

It's all Jimmy Hill's fault.

He got the salary cap lifted in England way back when.

He got the maximum wage(£20 at the time) abolished. Then Fulham chairman, comedian Tommy Trinder said publicly that if Hill succeeded he would pay then England international Johnny Hayes £100 per. Trinder was as good as his words and Johnny Hayes became the first £100 pw  footballer in Britain.

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A salary cap is needed to make leagues competitive.

 

Quite clearly, barring the odd exception, money buys success in football. The clubs with the most money are the most successful on the pitch these days. If some clubs can spend hundreds of times more than other clubs in the same league then things are clearly ****ed and unfair.

 

So do we just stick with this rotten, dying, corrupt model where more money buys success or do we try make it competitive again? This is a great way to achieve that.

 

Edited by kila
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3 hours ago, John Findlay said:

They have in Superleague, Rugby league and also the Premiership rugby, rugby union. 

Up here the two uglies would never go for it.

I have argued this for years John.  It's the only feasible way I can think of to make our premier league more competitive and the financial sustainability of clubs more secure.

 

Shouldn't the SPFL want that?

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Absolutely no chance that would get passed, simply because Celtic would suffer in the Champions League.

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I don't think that those figures would even make much of a difference to Scottish football. £100k for League 2, £250k for League 1 and £500k for the Championship would probably be plenty.

 

But the OF would never allow such a thing in the Premiership. A salary cap could be too much of a threat to their dominance.

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27 minutes ago, Locky said:

I don't think that those figures would even make much of a difference to Scottish football. £100k for League 2, £250k for League 1 and £500k for the Championship would probably be plenty.

 

But the OF would never allow such a thing in the Premiership. A salary cap could be too much of a threat to their dominance.

"could be"  Don't want to take issue with you but that is the understatement of the century.

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54 minutes ago, tian447 said:

Absolutely no chance that would get passed, simply because Celtic would suffer in the Champions League.

 

Wonder if UEFA might consider a salary cap for the Champions League? Otherwise it'll continue becoming a rich only competition and the richest clubs will continue to ponder with their breakaway European league agenda without UEFA running it.

 

 

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upgotheheads
6 hours ago, Pans Jambo said:

With League's 1 & 2 in England voting in a salary cap of £2.5M & £1.5M respectively (see link below), and the Championship considering an £18M salary cap, do you think something similar should be considered for the Scottish leagues?

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/12044401/league-one-and-league-two-clubs-vote-for-salary-caps

 

Supposing its set to:

£10M for the Premier

£2M for the Championship

£1M for Div 1

£250K for Div 2

 

I think that would be more financially sensible and ensure clubs dont overspend (of course the caveat is that Ross County or Hamilton or Kilmarnock etc. dont even turn over £10M but there could also be a ratio of earning to salary imposed (I know there already is one but Dundee Utd seemed to get away with ignoring it).

 

I think the leagues would be far more competetive.

 

Opinions?

 

My first thought when I saw this reported on the News was that it was a good idea, until I realised they were talking per player.  

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39 minutes ago, Kiwidoug said:

"could be"  Don't want to take issue with you but that is the understatement of the century.

I'd say would be, but not a given. With every referee in their back pockets, they'd still prevail no doubt.

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His name is
3 hours ago, MMHearts said:

Unsurprisingly the PFA in England aren’t in favour and have stated this is both illegal and unenforceable.  I remember Tommy Docherty telling tales about his time at Preston when there was a maximum wage in place.  If they won on the Saturday all the players would play the owner at snooker on the Sunday with a £20 bet on the game and he would “lose” to each player effectively topping their wages up.  Other clubs came up with similar schemes to pay players under the table, everyone knew it was going on but nothing was done about it.  This scheme would have to be very tightly monitored or some clubs will take advantage...
 

Saracens were hammered for breaching the the rules 

 

 https://news.sky.com/story/revealed-how-saracens-broke-rugbys-salary-cap-rules-11915269

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No chance in a million years would the SFA, Rangers and Celtic allow a game changing, ground leveling thing like a salary cap be introduced into this country which is set up to keep the old firm at the top of the tree.

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SomethingAboutObua

Had a think after doing some sums, I thought salary caps wouldn't benefit us at all within the SPFL but actually they could be hugely beneficial domestically for us. I'm still not sure if I support Salary caps but I know they'd be impossible to implement. Legally unless you started an entirely new league they'd never be able to happen. If they were allowed, the caps have to be a reasonable level that all teams can attain. 

Livi average wage-£46k (lowest)

Us-£111k (4th highest)

Celtic-£800k (Highest)

 

Say each team has 25 full time players that don't drop into the youth teams. 

 

Livi full wage could be £1.15million

Us-£2.78mil

Celtic-£20million

So to reach reasonable attainment we'd have to drop to say...£1.8million? About £72k each for a squad of 25. That's not huge for us when you look at where our squad finished compared to Motherwell and Livi on far less. There's no way Celtic would drop to that level of wages as this would totally **** our sides in Europe, but if you're like me and are more interested in domestic football it could be worth supporting.

We'd not be able to afford much of our squad but say you take the youth players out of the cap you're allowed to pay over the odds for 3-5 marquee players, say maximum 3 foreign marquees and 2 Scottish, now you've got a lot of money to specifically put towards game changing players. We could still afford Naismith,Gordon, Souttar and with the reduced wage still be able to sign a couple of good foreign players for our level. 
 

This season with Motherwell and Livi doing well and us doing shite might show that wages don't mean everything but is it worth dropping the quality of the team to create a more level playing field? I'm not sure. It wouldn't benefit us in Europe and I think even 72k is too high a salary for "attainable" for some of our teams. Plus what would we do if someone like Morton got promoted? Drop it even further?

 

It's an interesting idea, I think there's a lot of arguments that it could benefit Hearts domestically if it wasn't too low, but UEFA is gearing everything towards European competitions and this would probably destroy us there. A lot of youngsters could be easily lured down south for not much, but then again remove homegrown players from the cap until they're 24 and clubs could offer them more in wages to keep them? I think there's something worth investigating here even if its likely impossible

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1 minute ago, SomethingAboutObua said:

Had a think after doing some sums, I thought salary caps wouldn't benefit us at all within the SPFL but actually they could be hugely beneficial domestically for us. I'm still not sure if I support Salary caps but I know they'd be impossible to implement. Legally unless you started an entirely new league they'd never be able to happen. If they were allowed, the caps have to be a reasonable level that all teams can attain. 

Livi average wage-£46k (lowest)

Us-£111k (4th highest)

Celtic-£800k (Highest)

 

Say each team has 25 full time players that don't drop into the youth teams. 

 

Livi full wage could be £1.15million

Us-£2.78mil

Celtic-£20million

So to reach reasonable attainment we'd have to drop to say...£1.8million? About £72k each for a squad of 25. That's not huge for us when you look at where our squad finished compared to Motherwell and Livi on far less. There's no way Celtic would drop to that level of wages as this would totally **** our sides in Europe, but if you're like me and are more interested in domestic football it could be worth supporting.

We'd not be able to afford much of our squad but say you take the youth players out of the cap you're allowed to pay over the odds for 3-5 marquee players, say maximum 3 foreign marquees and 2 Scottish, now you've got a lot of money to specifically put towards game changing players. We could still afford Naismith,Gordon, Souttar and with the reduced wage still be able to sign a couple of good foreign players for our level. 
 

This season with Motherwell and Livi doing well and us doing shite might show that wages don't mean everything but is it worth dropping the quality of the team to create a more level playing field? I'm not sure. It wouldn't benefit us in Europe and I think even 72k is too high a salary for "attainable" for some of our teams. Plus what would we do if someone like Morton got promoted? Drop it even further?

 

It's an interesting idea, I think there's a lot of arguments that it could benefit Hearts domestically if it wasn't too low, but UEFA is gearing everything towards European competitions and this would probably destroy us there. A lot of youngsters could be easily lured down south for not much, but then again remove homegrown players from the cap until they're 24 and clubs could offer them more in wages to keep them? I think there's something worth investigating here even if its likely impossible


A better idea, would be to limit the percentage of tickets a club can sell to away supporters.

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Bazzas right boot

Good idea in principle, but no use unless every league worldwide does it. 

 

 

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What's required is a shift in what's important.

 

The national team now should be the most important priority, decades of self serving the old firm has not been successful for anybody,  including them. 

 

The emphasis now should shift towards making the national team competative once again, it's the only way investment will come and it's the only way Football in Scotland can survive. 

 

Club's in Scotland should be there to produce players for international places, the only way that becomes a reality is if all monies earned are earned for the good of the game and the country, there shouldn't be any pain in that, only pride.

 

Of course, it'll never happen because logic, forward thinking and mediocre intelligence doesn't exist in Scottish Football, only self preservation, free drink and pies and ego are Kings. 

 

Very much like Scottish society so it's not really surprising really. 

 

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maroonedinoz

In Oz they have it in all 3 football codes, and inevitable breaches are reported from time to time.

 

In the A League special exemptions are not uncommon, nor is it strange or explained how ‘big’ teams like Sydney FC or Melbourne Victory or City, generally manage to attract players whom you would think are highly paid.
 

in Aussie rules, tales of secret bank accounts opened in Tasmania And used to pay Melbourne based players are currently doing the rounds.

 

I accept it sounds ok..level playing field etc, but it’s never that simplistic.

 

If implemented, a bonanza for creative accountants and commercial lawyers but not much good for football in my opinion.

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The only concession I will make is that there would probably need to be a lead in time of 2 seasons to allow clubs above the new cap to adjust.

 

My understanding is that there is no upper limit on the earnings of individuals.  Say the cap was set at 10m, a player could be played 5m.  That would mean of course that the rest could get no more than 5m between them.

 

I know this entire thread is almost certainly a waste of time but if by some miracle, another virus perhaps, it was introduced, extreme care Is needed to ensure the rules are not subverted.  NRL could advise.

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I’m not sure a salary cap works, it’d be in relation to turnover and would increase the gap between Celtic and the rest, it would have an impact on Rangers, there could be a tweak to the distribution of wealth but I don’t see how clubs getting an extra £50-100k will change much.

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Is it not time to take back control.  This could work as a percentage of turnover in a new league. If the SPL clubs resign and form a new league Celtic and Rangers are left in a league of 2.  They can apply to join, but with a voting system say 8/4 instead of 11/1.  This lashes their power over the league.

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