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Post by Deleted on Apr 23, 2020 14:27:14 GMT
There's more and more talk of a salary cap in the lower leagues in which we participate. I wonder if this will make a return of the part time footballer?
I have no idea how much players get paid in league 1 or 2. Could one of our players be your bin man, or doctor?
Lots in amateur sports. e.g. Olympics springs to mind as does cycling.
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Post by whitesince63 on Apr 23, 2020 18:05:59 GMT
To be honest wots, I’m not sure exactly what benefit a salary cap for L1 and L2 would be. Wages are already way behind the leagues above and the only players getting biggish money are players you want to keep and who could get more in the Championship or PL. if you prevent the possibility to pay them what they’re worth you’re basically forcing the players to go. The problem for me is the huge difference between wages in the PL and below that. Putting a cap on the bottom two divisions won’t change that so I’m not sure what exactly it’s supposed to improve. If anything there needs to be a cap on PL wages and as has been said by others on here, any agents fees should be paid by the player not the club. That’s a situation I could never understand but I’m sure there’s some logic to it that I’m missing?
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Post by andyl on Apr 24, 2020 9:02:47 GMT
My take on this is within a much wider context and it's a context which affects this and many other bwfc, football and indeed political conundra and it probably colours how any of us think about anything.
Around the millennium I was privileged to attend a few lectures and read a few book and articles as part of a course I was doing..so what follows as a premise are not my own thoughts
'In essence political experience arises from the interaction of the state, civic society and the market' the optimum is perhaps when these are in balance as illustrated by three equal segments of with a central overlap. If one or other dominates you get for example capitalism or socialism if two obliterate a third you get totalitarian states. They all have ills, for example market failure in times of great community need- no better example than at present.
OK- football is not outside this dynamic but it is one domain, maybe the only domain I can think of where there is 1) global governance ( FIFA) and limited state control- very little political intervention 2) a rampant market illustrated by the greedy EPL and top player salaries 3) a major stake for civic society i.e all of us the fans who belong to and identify with their communities
I'd add here that in the era I was studying the debate was about the impact of a) globalisation on everything b) the speed of technological traffice especially financial across state borders and generally how self interest ( eg state nationalism) factored in.. Some 20 + years later it seems to me that both politics and football have played out that debate within similar parameters.
This is not about politics ( I prefer not to engage in that) but it's very relevant to this topic in my opinion and also that about how to end the season and all of our trials and tribulations since Eddie Davies' step back and ultimately death.
I suspect that whitessince, wots and i are of similar vintage and maybe some of the rest of you on here have memory or knowledge sufficient for this. We probably grew up with a concept of bwfc being our town team and in some sense belonging to us? We probably knew little of the Board and he extent to which business and self interest were involved. Very occasionally, issues such as the minimum wage Hill/Haynes issue brought some clashes to the fore and even less often we'd see some politics- there was one public health scare ( polio- Jeff Hall ( Birmingham) a casualty); and a nationalistic surge when we won the World Cup but until hooliganism, Hillsborough and Taylor ( incrementally over 15-20 years) no national political involvement and indeed perhaps culpable abdication on that issue which was football's problem?
Since the 1990s the market has driven all, community involvement has been marginalised and still the sate has abdicated. So Bury fold, we nearly fold and there will be lots of others. FIFA and UEFA make things worse.
So, now along comes Covid-19. The market cannot initially respond, the state has to step in so the magic money-tree is forever autumn and a huge state intervention happens invading thespace of both market and civic sectors. Football is shut down at a stroke. The football market collapses and save for a Supporters Trust and social media, civic society has no voice and even then... So what does football governance do? Nothing ( FIFA?) . EUFA? The FA?.. Impotent.. Should the state intervene-- players and staff some clubs are furloughed and some reliefs apply- bizarrely when applied to most EPL clubs. but there are even moral issues in the lower leagues and also practical economic dilemmas - to comply with football governance and be ruined by contract extensions or to fold or rebel. So what is a response: players' charity (EPL) or player wage cuts deferrals and so we go full circle to Hill and Haynes and salary caps but in reverse top down
My point here is perhaps too detached to be of practical value. But it is that debates about a) wage caps b) rushed closed door season finales and c) rules about FFP, embargoes, administration etc are completely irrelevant and inadequate to the problems football faces because of market dominance, limited community stakeholding and absent ( national ) or hopeless international ( FIFA) models of governance. If a government or governments can step in the correct market failure in public health who can step in to save football-?
So, what next - see other threads - we have to hope that Covid-19 doesn't just result in a back to normal for football . The balance was already broken. The whole operation needs a major rethink and reboot and i suspect nationally and internationally. This season cannot finish sensibly. Many clubs cannot survive this. Maybe Bolton crashed ahead of the Peak and may survive if FV have enough cash but others won't. At present I can't see a way forward unless somehow clubs are much more rooted in and financed by communities and the major EPL clubs depart for a global league and take all the pressures away from teams like Bolton. Reconfigure the leagues, democratically agree their shape, consider regionalisation as Third Div North/South etc and then let a lesser market drive day to day affairs and not wage caps. If somehow some kind of balance is restored then football as we know it may have another 140 years to run. Go on as we are with market dominance, weak governance, no state involvement and neutered community involvement and I seriously doubt there'll be many football clubs left- they will have had their time and one by one been Buryed?
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Post by OohMac on Apr 24, 2020 9:12:17 GMT
I think a salary cap is not the answer. As whites said L1 sides would lose thier best players without much of a fight. Then what happens when championship sides get relegated?
What makes more sense if for owners to impose thier own budgets and take responsibility. I'm sure thats how it used to work.
I think our scouting was much better before we just threw money at problems.
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Post by whitesince63 on Apr 24, 2020 11:17:06 GMT
The problem with football is the self interest I’m afraid. Getting clubs, even in the same division, to agree to anything is a struggle, so getting the Championship or the most selfish of all, the Pl to agree to reshape football with the biggest sacrifice coming from them, seems an impossible task. Maybe all football clubs in the EPL should be forced to run like FTSE companies, where all the earnings are made public and if the club becomes insolvent it has to announce it and either fold or sell out. At the moment, football finances are far from transparent so how FFP can possibly work amazes me. Clearly, it looks like we are in for a long wait until football returns and by that time many clubs will find it impossible to survive. I think as andyl says, football has been allowed, in fact encouraged, by the football authorities to become so financially distorted and if anything good does come out of any conclusion, there will be a more equal split of the pie going forward. Personally I wouldn’t bet on it without a complete clear out of the current leadership of all authorities, FIFA, PL, EFL, FA, PFA and similar because they are just as greedy, selfish and avaricious as the big clubs and players they represent. Maybe as andyl also says, government may need to intervene. We can only wait and see but actually, the longer this goes on and the more we see the greed and self interest of football, the more it makes me wonder whether I really care and if and when it does come back, I’ll bother watching at all.
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Post by kenglowhite on Apr 24, 2020 11:28:54 GMT
I think Andy's piece should be circulated to all those little cub reporters in the national press who have grown up supporting Chelsea, ManU, Arsenal, Liverpool, Everton and Tottenham, who write every day as if the answer to everything is just money. The most relevant part of the whole thing is how local support now counts for nothing in the survival of clubs, who are all looking for sugar daddies, as opposed to the hard-headed local businessmen who used to finance their hobby in the local team. And now we look likely to have Saudi-Toon United !
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2020 2:34:49 GMT
My take on this is within a much wider context and it's a context which affects this and many other bwfc, football and indeed political conundra and it probably colours how any of us think about anything. Around the millennium I was privileged to attend a few lectures and read a few book and articles as part of a course I was doing..so what follows as a premise are not my own thoughts 'In essence political experience arises from the interaction of the state, civic society and the market' the optimum is perhaps when these are in balance as illustrated by three equal segments of with a central overlap. If one or other dominates you get for example capitalism or socialism if two obliterate a third you get totalitarian states. They all have ills, for example market failure in times of great community need- no better example than at present. OK- football is not outside this dynamic but it is one domain, maybe the only domain I can think of where there is 1) global governance ( FIFA) and limited state control- very little political intervention 2) a rampant market illustrated by the greedy EPL and top player salaries 3) a major stake for civic society i.e all of us the fans who belong to and identify with their communities I'd add here that in the era I was studying the debate was about the impact of a) globalisation on everything b) the speed of technological traffice especially financial across state borders and generally how self interest ( eg state nationalism) factored in.. Some 20 + years later it seems to me that both politics and football have played out that debate within similar parameters. This is not about politics ( I prefer not to engage in that) but it's very relevant to this topic in my opinion and also that about how to end the season and all of our trials and tribulations since Eddie Davies' step back and ultimately death. I suspect that whitessince, wots and i are of similar vintage and maybe some of the rest of you on here have memory or knowledge sufficient for this. We probably grew up with a concept of bwfc being our town team and in some sense belonging to us? We probably knew little of the Board and he extent to which business and self interest were involved. Very occasionally, issues such as the minimum wage Hill/Haynes issue brought some clashes to the fore and even less often we'd see some politics- there was one public health scare ( polio- Jeff Hall ( Birmingham) a casualty); and a nationalistic surge when we won the World Cup but until hooliganism, Hillsborough and Taylor ( incrementally over 15-20 years) no national political involvement and indeed perhaps culpable abdication on that issue which was football's problem? Since the 1990s the market has driven all, community involvement has been marginalised and still the sate has abdicated. So Bury fold, we nearly fold and there will be lots of others. FIFA and UEFA make things worse. So, now along comes Covid-19. The market cannot initially respond, the state has to step in so the magic money-tree is forever autumn and a huge state intervention happens invading thespace of both market and civic sectors. Football is shut down at a stroke. The football market collapses and save for a Supporters Trust and social media, civic society has no voice and even then... So what does football governance do? Nothing ( FIFA?) . EUFA? The FA?.. Impotent.. Should the state intervene-- players and staff some clubs are furloughed and some reliefs apply- bizarrely when applied to most EPL clubs. but there are even moral issues in the lower leagues and also practical economic dilemmas - to comply with football governance and be ruined by contract extensions or to fold or rebel. So what is a response: players' charity (EPL) or player wage cuts deferrals and so we go full circle to Hill and Haynes and salary caps but in reverse top down My point here is perhaps too detached to be of practical value. But it is that debates about a) wage caps b) rushed closed door season finales and c) rules about FFP, embargoes, administration etc are completely irrelevant and inadequate to the problems football faces because of market dominance, limited community stakeholding and absent ( national ) or hopeless international ( FIFA) models of governance. If a government or governments can step in the correct market failure in public health who can step in to save football-? So, what next - see other threads - we have to hope that Covid-19 doesn't just result in a back to normal for football . The balance was already broken. The whole operation needs a major rethink and reboot and i suspect nationally and internationally. This season cannot finish sensibly. Many clubs cannot survive this. Maybe Bolton crashed ahead of the Peak and may survive if FV have enough cash but others won't. At present I can't see a way forward unless somehow clubs are much more rooted in and financed by communities and the major EPL clubs depart for a global league and take all the pressures away from teams like Bolton. Reconfigure the leagues, democratically agree their shape, consider regionalisation as Third Div North/South etc and then let a lesser market drive day to day affairs and not wage caps. If somehow some kind of balance is restored then football as we know it may have another 140 years to run. Go on as we are with market dominance, weak governance, no state involvement and neutered community involvement and I seriously doubt there'll be many football clubs left- they will have had their time and one by one been Buryed? Andy, my rebuttal is more to continue the debate, rather than argument. Firstly, you’re correct that yourself, whites and myself are of a certain era, but I’d suggest that a few others on here may have experience of our club/football, while we were still in nappies. I hope they can provide a view from their experiences with the situation. I've always held the belief that I was a part of BWFC as I grew into the match day experience, but when we are regarded as customers and not fans, then we truly are detached from the community aspect of the club. Some owners have already said that dividing the league into a North/South is not under consideration, because travel is only a minor portion of their budget. From a fan’s perspective it’s not practical, nor affordable, I can see that. Salary caps are not based on individual players earnings. A salary cap would limit the amount of money a club could spend for players wages per year/season. Wages in a squad are unbalanced anyway. Strikers usually getting more money than say a left back. Wage caps stop the clubs with copious amounts of money leaving those without at a disadvantage. Contracts can be adjusted to address relegation. Isn’t this the complaint we make of the Premier League and their copious amounts of money? Think Man Utd or Chelsea v Burnley or Bournemouth. It’s all so unbalanced and needs addressing. The same may apply in the lower leagues, I don't know. My best example on the unbalanced nature in the game is Chelsea's Abramovich. Buy all the good players, depriving others and then loaning them out, so as not to play against his club. ‘Course he would get said loanee to pay the wages of said player too. It’s anti-competitive and it adds to the unbalanced nature that you mention.
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Post by OohMac on Apr 25, 2020 6:26:41 GMT
I think youre right about the Chelsea thing. Think they had 70 players on the books at one point. I think even they have come to realise it cant happen and have begun to use academy players and have stopped the "at all costs" in the market. Mainly because even the minnows in the prem have enough funds to pay better.
I was thinking whether an american style draft system could be implemented. Any player not named in a clubs first squad of say 30 is made available(at the cost of the parent club) and then the teams in L1 and L2 will have a first, second maybe even a 3rd pick.
Gets players playing regularly, it gives the poorer teams some quality to level the field and see some good footballers and it means the teams get at least 3 squad players for free.
I mean even the loan system now is broke. £2M to loan and cover 75% of his £80k a week wages. The MacDraft(patent pending) could stop that.
I remember hearing Sean Dyche interview where he said he wasnt going to harass or badger the board for money he knows they didnt have and said he felt it was his responsibility to get the best squad but in an affordable way. Contrast that with Coyle or other managers who will panic and throw money down the drain rather than working on coaching and scouting.
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Post by whitesince63 on Apr 25, 2020 9:57:24 GMT
I think Chelsea only used academy players because they were prevented from buying OM but look how well it’s turned out for them? The problem as I see it is that even the PL itself has split into two divisions with the top 6 to 8 clubs we all know, always in the top half with the occasional intruder like Leicester and Sheff Utd temporarily holding court. They have the resources to go out and pay silly money and wages for the top players which sadly has led to the disparity we see today and not just here but across the whole of Europe. Unfortunately, the authorities promote this as progress, look at how clever we are bringing the top players to you, isn’t the Premiership wonderful, totally ignoring the other 90%.of clubs and dragging the rest of the PL and even Championship teams into spending money they don’t really have, chasing the impossible dream, other than a very occasional fortunate intruder like Leicester were.
Maybe it really is time to move the “big boys” into a European League and completely restructure the remaking teams into a proper 4 division set up, properly funded and shared competition, giving football back to the fans, not as wots says, customers. Right now I’m falling out of love with football, sick of the greed and selfishness and lack of community spirit. Maybe it’s because I’m getting older or maybe because we’ve done so abysmally for the last 10 years or so. Perhaps it’s because we haven’t had a “hero” in that time other than perhaps ALF who we could get behind despite how abysmally he was treated by Parkinson. It doesn’t even have to be a player, it could be a manager like Bruce, Toddy or BSA, but where are the likes of Super John, Gudni or JJ that you felt would run through a wall for the club? Something is missing from football and unless they change the greed and avariciousness of the game, created from the top, clubs, players and officials, I’m not sure I will be there when we return. This is the chance to stand back and reassess the situation but I’m afraid it may be beyond repair because money will overrule everything else and continue to destroy the game at lower levels as has happened since the PL was formed.
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