The Price of Football by kieran Maguire

Author:kieran Maguire [kieran Maguire]
Language: eng
Format: epub

Leagues One and Two

In League Divisions One and Two the FFP focus is on wage control via Salary Cost Management Protocol (SCMP). Under these rules a club in League One can only spend 60 per cent of its regular turnover (effectively matchday, commercial and broadcasting income) plus 100 per cent of any “Football Fortune” income, which includes donations, prize money, net transfer income, parachute payments, and owner equity injections on “player related expenditure” (wages and benefits paid to players and their agents). The small print is, as always in these things, detailed and covers many issues, for example, if a club tries to evade the rules by promoting a particular player to a coaching or managerial role, 50 per cent of his wages and benefits are deemed to be for the playing part of his contract. It’s a messy calculation, but clubs at least know where they stand at the start of each season.

In League Two the salary cap was 55 per cent of regular turnover and this was reduced to 50 per cent from 2018/19 onwards. Whilst lower league football does not generate many column inches in the national press, SCMP has been relatively successful in reducing the number of clubs who enter corporate bankruptcy in the form of administration or liquidation. That has not however stopped some clubs from trying to bend the rules. Chesterfield Football Club were fined £12,500 in July 2018 after it was discovered the wages of two players were paid by a private football academy owned by the club’s former CEO. It is this type of cat and mouse that takes up time and money better spent elsewhere for the good of the game.

FFP in its various forms is here to stay and does have some merits, especially at a lower league level, in reducing the probability of club bankruptcies. The biggest criticisms of FFP come in relation to the rationale behind the rules at the elite level. The word “fair” is a complete misnomer if the intention of those who make the rules is to keep competition for major European trophies between the very few and prevent newly monied clubs from rising to challenge the existing cartel. There were fears that players would migrate away from countries which are bound by UEFA’s relatively stringent rules, as wages outside of Europe, unregulated by FFP caps, might prove attractive to players. However, these fears now appear to be without foundation. The rise of the Chinese Super League (CSL), when President Xi Jinping was encouraging growth in football a few years ago, did appear to offer a potential talent drain away from Europe as CSL clubs were not subject to FFP. Initially the movement of players to the CSL, such as Jackson Martinez, Ramirez, Oscar and Hulk suggested there could be a major threat to clubs in Europe. But recent regulations in China, introduced in June 2017, has meant that there is now a 100 per cent tax on any player who is signed for more than £5.

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