Salary cap could leave clubs facing some major decisions

CARDIFF City and Swansea City might have to cut their wage bills in half if reports of a £20million club salary cap are to be implemented bear fruit.

EFL chair Rick Parry on Tuesday told parliament’s DCMS committee that implementing a salary cap for Championship clubs and below is a proactive way of neutralising the damaging effects of inflated wages in the lower leagues.

Parry (pictured) called the overegged Championship wage bills, which represent a staggering 106 percent of their turnover, “the most expensive lottery ticket you could buy”, with promotion to the Premier League the only tonic for such a potentially damaging financial structure.

Both the Bluebirds and the Swans, however, have recently sought to balance their books.

Swansea have undertaken a number of shrewd financial decisions in recent years, while Cardiff this season announced a desire to become more self-sustaining and transfer savvy than they have been lately.

And now, according to The Sun, chiefs from 10 of the 24 Championship clubs met via video conference last Friday to discuss plans to implement a £20m salary cap.

They report the clubs involved were made up mainly of clubs described as ‘perennial Championship teams’ and who want to use the impact of coronavirus to stabilise their finances.

The Sun say that Leeds United, West Brom, Nottingham Forest, Fulham and Brentford are among those who were not involved in the discussions.

“A salary cap will suit some of the smaller teams in the Championship,” a source said.

“They will be the ones who generally feel they have reached the ceiling of their realistic expectations – teams who don’t tend to be pushing for promotion to the Premier League.

“Other more notable teams wouldn’t want to sign up to a salary cap because they want to invest in trying to reach the top division.

“As a result they were not included in the talks last Friday and won’t be either going forwards.

“It’s not a snub – it’s just realistic economics and it’s so that nobody’s time is wasted.”

While there will likely be a cooling-off period for Championship clubs should the plans come to fruition, the decision will have huge ramifications for both the Bluebirds and the Swans.

The Premier League season saw the Bluebirds’ player-related wage bill rise drastically from £31.2m to £42.5m, as can be expected with the larger wage packets in the top flight.

One would think that now, in this season, that £42.5m wage will have been dramatically reduced, given the exits of the likes of Bobby Reid, Lee Peltier and Gary Madine, while the likes of Harry Arter, Oumar Niasse and Victor Camarasa all opting against signing new deals at City.

The wage bill, though, is still likely to be very sizeable and a £20m wage cap is likely to be millions of pounds below what their current outlay is.

The same, meanwhile, can be said for Swansea, whose £50.3m outlay for the 2019 financial year will have been drastically cut following the exits of Oli McBurnie, Borja Baston and Tom Carroll, all of whom were understood to be on sizeable wage packets.

They are continually trying to lower their wage bill given that next season will be the last instalment of their Premier League parachute payments, too.

But, even using these figures as a benchmark, it would mean both Welsh clubs would likely have to cut their wage bills by somewhere around half if they were to comply with these proposed plans.

The same, too, goes for Championship’s top two clubs.

Leeds United are thought to have a wage bill of £46.1m, while West Brom are even higher at £46.8m.

These proposed plans on how best to implement a salary cap also appear to align with what Parry told the DCMS committee on Tuesday.

“We are not reimposing a maximum wage to every single player,” the 65-year-old said.

“We are talking about capping the amount individual clubs can pay so they would have discretion within that to pay players whatever they wanted to pay them.

“We are not capping individual wages, which I’m almost certain would be illegal.

“We are looking at some form of cost control which limits the total budget clubs are allowed to spend.” the