It has long been argued on here and in many parts of the media that football spending has spiralled out of control, especially when it comes to the astronomical wages paid to Premier League stars. Agents nowadays make outrageous demands in the name of ‘protecting clients interests’, but in reality they are bringing clubs to their knees.
The ex-Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger, who is now head of global development at FIFA, is hoping to reduce the agents powers by reintroducing licenses, and more importantly, reducing the percentage of income that clubs can allocate to players’ wages. He said in the Mirror: “I am in favour of limiting the share of the budget of a club dedicated to the players’ payroll. At 50%, for example.
“Half of the club’s budget devoted to player salaries; the other half dedicated to equity and operating costs. At Arsenal, this rule was imposed on us by the banks: we could not exceed a part of our budget in player salaries. But it did not prevent us from paying very large salaries.”
Arsenal themselves currently spend 60% of turnover on wages, and to be fair many EPL clubs are in between the 50% to 60% figures, but there are also a fair number of less successful clubs that are spending well over 70% (or more) to entice players to join them. Crystal Palace, for instance, pay out 78% of their turnover at the moment, but when you think they have just had two months without any turnover at all, you can imagine the problems they will have sustaining these payments. Most clubs do not have a bottomless pit of cash reserves (if any at all).
So Wenger is only talking sense of course, although it does mean that the richer clubs will always be able to offer higher wages than mid-table clubs, but at least they will be limited a little bit more than they are now.
What do you think, Gooners?