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Shaunders Shaves Shoccer

Nine days until the new football season and the excitement is… almost non-existent. England’s rotten world cup campaign combined with public apathy towards the highly-paid, underachieving thugs we’re all expected to idolise means this could be the perfect time for a revolution! My suggestions:

£10,000 a week pay cap (this still works out at upwards of £500,000 a year, and players are free to seek out their own endorsement and sponsorship deals)
£5,000,000 transfer fee cap
£10 upper limit on match-day ticket prices

Granted, these measures would probably see a mass exodus of players to the Italian, Spanish and German leagues but really, what does it matter? A greater emphasis on home-grown talent would do wonders for the national team and, with lower outgoings, the holy grail of the Champions League will no longer be quite as vital. A transfer fee and wage cap should prevent the financial messes clubs like Portsmouth, Liverpool and <ahem> Ipswich have got themselves into in recent years, through not living within their means.

The third point probably requires more explanation, but the days where a club’s main income comes from ticket sales are long-gone. The cash cow now is television money, but what’s more depressing than watching a game played in a half-empty stadium*? In this age of austerity, why would people pay £35 a ticket when they can sit in and watch it on the box? Fill the stadiums with cheap tickets (and whatever revenue comes from in-stadium merchandising) and encourage people to make noise and get involved with the game. If it looks good on television, people will be more inclined to come along and that’s a win-win!

Anyway, the game’s too far gone for any of the above to happen, but I dearly wish it would. At least wrestling and World of Warcraft are still awesome, eh?

* Within a football context, I mean. I accept that things like cancer, Third World debt and Michael Mcintyre are more depressing.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 29th, 2010 at 1:11 pm and is filed under Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Shaunders Shaves Shoccer”

JC Says:
August 3rd, 2010 at 12:24 pm
A straight forward salary cap on a club could solve a lot of problems. If set at the right level and properly enforced it means that clubs have to do a balancing act between star names and an all round quality team. It stops the richer clubs running away with things too much but still means that the lower clubs get filter down transfer money. It also encourages sides to create home grown talent as they tend to be cheaper than bringing in established stars/journeymen. It also stops rich sides picking up players just to have them sit on the bench and not let other teams have them. Plus it encourages good financial practice from a side as with a lower wage bill they has less outgoings and means they actively keep an eye on the books.

It wouldn’t affect players that much, who let’s face it, get paid far, far too much already. Plus a lot of their income comes from endorsements and other sources anyway so they can’t complain too much.

Shaunders Shaves Shoccer

One Response to “Shaunders Shaves Shoccer”

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