The salary cap in european futbol has been of great controversy over the years. Since there is not a cap, the most wealthy clubs are able to win on all transfers and spend well beyond what many clubs could even imagine spending on salaries. With such large spending, they are rewarded for such behavior by getting larger incentives for their teams success. The article below is a bit dated, but talks of such inequality in the sport today and how it is nearly impossible for middle and low tier teams to climb up the ranks of their respective leagues. It proposes an American like salary cap that prevents teams from "doping" in order to be a better organization and promotes a healthier league where teams have to develop players because of cash restrictions unlike the current FFP system.
http://soccerly.com/article/sgevans/the-only-real-financial-fair-play-is-a-true-salary-cap
All I can say is, do you really want European football to be like the MLS?
ReplyDeleteCould you elaborate more on why you disapprove of the current MLS salary cap structure?
ReplyDeleteI have been confused about the fact that European futbol has never had a salary cap for a while. In my opinion, I really do think that it's unfair. You can't let 1 or 2 teams take all of the best players and continue to be the best in the world forever.
ReplyDeleteThe MLS salary cap, similar to other American sports, hampers the ability for there to be truly amazing teams. Look at Barcelona and Real Madrid of the 2010's or Man U, Arsenal, and Chelsea of 2005-2008. With having no salary caps, teams are able to compete against other amazing teams with amazing players. Not to mention, in Europe there is a lot of lesser leagues with great players. With a salary cap, amazing players would be left in no mans land because the great teams could not afford them. What we would be left with is good competition, but the Man U-Chelsea, Barca-Real Madrid, Milan-Juve (early 2000's) would disappear.
ReplyDeleteI think we have to agree to disagree on this one Tyler. You favor the rivalry of the futbol giants while I look for a more competitive league. There can still be these historical rivalries even with a salary cap as it is seen with teams such as the Chicago Bears and Green bay Packers of the NFL. They just don't consistently compete against each other for the league title. I feel it is better to spreadout star power to truly see who is the best star player who has the greatest will to win.
DeleteIn agreement with you, I do believe the current FFP system does promote the globalization and max profits for european futbol, but something deep down just does not seem right to me.
The article mentions an interesting point regarding FFP. While some clubs have been powerhouses year after year, other clubs have been been just at the cusp of entering the elites. The article mentions Aston Villa as such a club on the verge of being very successful. While the club shows promise, it will not be able to clear the hurdle into the world's best clubs without very large investments of money that contribute to the acquisition of new players. FFP would make such investments difficult if not impossible, thus hindering the success of clubs like Aston Villa.
ReplyDelete-Ryan Ladell
Yes. The article definitely mentions how unsustainable the middle and lower tier teams can be because the top two teams are already able to balance their extremely large outflows against their inflows, and therefore control most of the global market.
DeleteThe article mentions an interesting point regarding FFP. While some clubs have been powerhouses year after year, other clubs have been been just at the cusp of entering the elites. The article mentions Aston Villa as such a club on the verge of being very successful. While the club shows promise, it will not be able to clear the hurdle into the world's best clubs without very large investments of money that contribute to the acquisition of new players. FFP would make such investments difficult if not impossible, thus hindering the success of clubs like Aston Villa.
ReplyDelete-Ryan Ladell
I'm a bit torn here. Usually I am all for evening out the playing field and having more competitive leagues, as I love the parody of American professional sports leagues, year by year. However, the Champions League achieves the significance that it has because of the lack of a salary cap throughout Europe. Players can be bought for their true market value rather than some maximum salary similar to the NHL and NBA. My primary problem with the salary cap in these American leagues is the fact that as revenues for these professional sports continue to rise, and CBAs are continually negotiated, maximum salaries for players rise as well. What ends up happening is that the best players aren't actually paid their true market value, and even negotiate contracts to expire at the same time as CBAs in order to get the new, highest possible, maximum contract. This all makes the negotiations involved in contract and CBA talks too political for my liking. Granted I still avidly follow these American leagues once they’re actually on the field, so it is not to say that this problem I’ve pointed out deters me from enjoying the content provided.
ReplyDeleteI do think there should be salary caps because it does level out the playing field. A league can have a good and dominant team perhaps through their youth program, but not be superior year after year because of the wealth one team has. To comment about Tyler's response. I agree with Adam on this one. I see your argument that European football might be more exciting than the MLS because they don't have salary caps, but in reality it is not because of the salary cap rule that the MLS is not very popular. The MLS is unpopular because there are no star players that want to come to the United States to play. It is not like they do not have the money to pay players either. I think they do not want to come because the surrounding talent is not as superb as the talent in Europe thus one would not be able to keep up their skills if they played in the MLS. Only time will tell if the MLS salary cap is truly worse. Hopefully, American players will develop better skills to make the MLS more competitive and be able to further delve into this theory.
ReplyDeleteI think this is so unfair, I agree that there should be Salary Caps as well. It just seems like some clubs are able to get ahead just based on the amount they can pay their players. How are smaller clubs ever supposed to grow if they can't recruit the same players or quality of players? - Daniel Dzhurayev
ReplyDeleteI think that Major League Baseball has the best system in practice in professional sports. While there is no salary cap that teams are not allowed to exceed in spending on players, there is a luxury tax line that acts as a quasi-spending limit. For every dollar spent above the luxury tax line, teams must pay an additional percentage of that dollar to the league. This deters the biggest market teams from spending significantly more than that of their smaller market counterparts in order to increase parity, but still makes it possible to spend really go after free agents and offer up enormous contracts. I'd be interested to see what you guys think about this system because it wouldn't completely level the European playing field, but it would definitely shake the landscape.
ReplyDeleteCommenting further on what Jacob said, I never knew that this existed within the MLB. Looking into it further I also thing that this method is the best one for professional sports. I wonder however if this would be able to be maneuvered in European society with their football leagues. I think its great because it makes the playing field as even and level as possible in a competitive industry that no matter what cannot be fair for all contributors. There almost is nothing you can do for certain teams with bigger investments to have better advantages. It's life some people are just ahead and others aren't, however I feel that the way the MLB manages this system is the best way of doing it and the most fair. Comment by Ali Cohen
ReplyDeleteIn the past 86 years of La Liga, 2 teams (Real Madrid and Barcelona) have won 55 of those years and have also been runner up 46 times. That is an insane number. There is absolutely nothing competitive about that figure. These two teams' ability to pay for pay players is clearly directly tied with their success. Sure, it is awesome to see mega-stars play for the same team but you can't say it's because you enjoy competition.
ReplyDeleteI believe that there should be a salary cap, but teams can go over the salary cap, but pay a steep fine. So teams like FC Barcelona can go over the salary cap, but when they do they have to pay a huge fine. This will create much more competition in soccer without the huge powerhouses. Every game would be much more competitive. I believe that leagues like the MLB are very competitive because of salary caps. When I buy season tickets to the Phillies I know that every game has star players. I enjoy watching the star players from the different teams. If soccer had a salary cap, every game would probably have a star player, which would increase ticket sales because the competition is much greater.
ReplyDelete- Justin Conway
It is definitely difficult for lower and middle ranked teams to move up to become a giant. however, it is definitely possible. Check out Manchester City. Even though it was through capital investment, it is still a strong example of a team moving through the ranks very fast. All it took was an investor who wanted his own sports club.
ReplyDelete-Colin Zaccagnio
For once I have to agree with Justin. I think that this method of paying a steep fine for going over will curb the crazing spending for the larger clubs. I think the one benefit of most U.S. sports is the competitiveness. For example, In the NHL my favorite aspect is that anything can happen, the worst team still has the possibility of beating the best team. In american sports you see way more upsets and it's something that makes games that much more exciting. Looking at La Liga a team like Levante or Granada has no hopes in beating FCB. Lastly, this increase in competitiveness in soccer would increase ticket sales as people would be more inclined to go to more games since the games would be more even.
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