Eli5: why are there no salary caps in English/European football? Wouldn’t it make the league’s a bit fairer?
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They’re voting on one now:
[https://www.sportico.com/leagues/soccer/2024/premier-league-salary-cap-proposal-1234777230/](https://www.sportico.com/leagues/soccer/2024/premier-league-salary-cap-proposal-1234777230/)
(At least in the English Premier League).
In large organizations things can’t just be implemented. There are processes, bureaucracy, and politics involved. It’s taken months to just get to this point with the above proposal and won’t take effect for another year. Things take time and require the appropriate social momentum to build up.
Because the European leagues compete with each other.
In the US for example there is no real competition between the teams as they are all franchises of the same company in the end. (A football team in the US is basically just like a McDonalds Restaurant in a different city). While the leagues within Europe and the teams within those leagues are complete different legal entities. Those teams are just members of the UEFA for example and the UEFA does not have direct rights to give instructions to those teams.
However if let’s say England would implement a salary cap and it is not too high.. then the best player would just move to Spain, France, Italy or Germany. Or with a very low cap they even might go to Asia or where they get the most money.
I’m personally not even sure that a salary cap could be legally allowed. There have been many rules in football that have been abandoned by decision made by “real courts”.
For example: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosman_ruling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosman_ruling)
European football is run as a meritocracy. The best teams get more prize money, promotions, entry into international competitions etc. while the worst get relegated.
It’s the direct opposite to, for example, the NBA where the worst performing teams are given better draft picks.
They don’t want it to be fair. The big clubs want to stay on top and hoard all the best players. European football is ruled by money and it’s only getting worse.
European football is a plutocracy. If you have the most money, you get the best players, win the most games, etc. No drafts, no caps, no help for struggling teams.
Also different countries have different taxation.
Where in the UK the club pays 10-30% of salary in taxes, in France it could be 50-100%, so you’d then need to make the salary cap reflect that.
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