Premier League Clubs Agree in Principle to Wage Spending Cap

With UEFA’s Financial Fair Play regulations broadly considered to have failed at stopping clubs spending beyond their means and the growth of clubs as state-owned sportswashing fronts like Manchester City and Newcastle United, there has been a push in the Premier League in recent seasons to try to enact some kind of spending cap.

The particulars of such a cap still aren’t clear today, but it appears almost certain one will soon be enacted. This following a passed vote by Premier League sides to push ahead with plans that would, in the broadest strokes, look to tie all squad finances—transfers, agent fees, and wages—to the television revenue of the league’s last-place side.

Premier League charter changes require 14 of the league’s 20 clubs to vote in favour in order to be enacted, and 16 clubs including Liverpool voted in favour today. Manchester City, Manchester United, as well as—to some people’s surprise—Aston Villa were the clubs that voted against the cap proposal while Chelsea abstained.

Previous reports have suggested a formula that would allow all clubs to spend up to 4.5-5X the television revenues of the league’s last-place side on their squad, and most would likely agree some degree of increased parity would be beneficial for a league that has seen sportswashers and current title favourites City win five of the last six.

There are concerns from some quarters around a cap, though, including the Professional Footballers’ Association, who said: “We’ll wait to see details of proposals but would oppose any measure that would place a hard cap on wages. There is an established process in place to ensure proposals like this have to be properly consulted on.”