SALARY CAP MOOTED YET AGAIN
Football stars across Europe face a pay cap to stop an “arms race” of salaries crippling clubs, under wide-ranging proposals put forward yesterday. The joint European Union and Uefa review of football also urges rules to limit the number of foreign players, to protect home-grown talent and to preserve the integrity of the game by preventing “questionable owners” from taking over clubs.
The report, commissioned by the British Government last year when it held the EU presidency, insists that a raft of European legislation is needed to protect the industry and to ensure the independence of sports authorities.
The report, commissioned by the British Government last year when it held the EU presidency, insists that a raft of European legislation is needed to protect the industry and to ensure the independence of sports authorities.
The report is likely to be seen as a challenge to the growing power of leading clubs and raises fears of Brussels interfering in the running of the game. The FA Premier League has written to the Prime Minister stating its concern.
A senior government official said last night that Tony Blair is unlikely to back plans to give Brussels regulatory powers over British football.
The report will be presented to EU leaders to decide what action to take by the end of the year. Richard Caborn, the Minister for Sport, said that all the recommendations must be considered. “The report takes the right direction of travel, but there is a lot of work to do over the next six or seven months,” he said, adding that it did not transfer control of the sport to Brussels. “The report needs to be seen in the round,” he said.
He also pointed out that even the G14 group of clubs had accepted that there should be “cost controls”.
The report reserves some of its strongest criticism for players' salaries, which it said had plunged the industry into a prolonged financial crisis. “This crisis is directly related to the massive wage inflation the sport has seen in recent years fuelled by the ever higher financial demands made by players at the encouragement of their ubiquitous agents,” the report says.
It concluded that it was “essential that some form of regulatory control be introduced” and proposed to cap salaries as a share of club turnover. The salary cap would be upheld by a new pan-European tax on clubs to redistribute wealth from those that exceed the salary cap to poorer clubs.