Wage Caps – A Good Idea?

The amount of money currently earned by professional footballers is absolutely unbelievable. Top players in the Premiership like John Terry, Frank Lampard, Cristiano Ronaldo, Robinho or Fernando Torres will be earning six figures each week! Ronaldo and Robinho are expected to be earning between £120,000 and £130,000, and that’s wages alone. On top of this you have all the sponsorship deals that they have, which means tens of extra millions a year.

The fans are the ones who are responsible for this and who make this possible. As long as they are prepared to pay £30-£60 to watch 90 minutes of football, then top clubs with an average attendance of around 45,000 will be earning between £2m - £3m a game from gate receipts alone. The money involved is phenomenal at the highest level - many people have to work for about six years to earn that kind of money, never mind a week! Purely from an ethical point of view, I’m sure many people would be keen on wage caps, but the problem with this is that all of the top players will leave the country, so it then creates a dilemma.

The only way to get around this problem would be to make it a Europe-wide law, but the chances of getting every club to agree to this are extremely remote. The other side to this argument, of course, is that if people are so outraged over the amount that footballers are earning, then what about film stars, who earn several millions for one movie, top musicians who get seven- or eight-figure record contracts, or basketball players in America - and the list could go on.

At the end of the day, it is important to remember the main aspect in all of this: the entertainment. Any form of entertainment is highly paid because it is viewed by so many people. The power of the consumer is massive; they could destroy anything in a matter of months. If people were to stop going to matches or watching films, it would virtually bring both industries to a stand still.

Back to wage caps. One of the main reasons - in terms of football rather than what people think of it ­- is that it is unfair to other teams. If say Chelsea and Fulham both want a player, then Fulham may be able to offer a maximum of £30K-£40K a week, whereas Chelsea almost has unlimited funds, and could offer £200K a week if they wanted. The reason why they can afford this is because of a rich foreign investor.

Money speaks louder than words to players; there is no loyalty in football. So by making a more even playing field with regards to wages, then maybe you would see different players going to different clubs, and therefore creating a fairer and more interesting league for people to watch. Fifteen out of the 20 Premiership clubs would be in favour of this, and definitely all of the other divisions.