Peter Corrigan: The salary cap fits, but will they wear it?

When the 20 Premier League chairmen met on Thursday at the aptly named Landmark Hotel in London, we can only imagine the happy atmosphere, laced with self-satisfaction, smugness even, in which they conducted their deliberations. I can't swear to the fact that when the matter of Adam Crozier's departure from the Football Association was raised someone actually said, "We're well rid of that little sod", but I gather it loosely serves as a description of the meeting's mood on that subject.

They were at pains to emphasise afterwards that they were just as concerned about the need to finance the game's grass roots as anyone, but there was little to comfort those of us who are concerned about the direction in which football has been pointed over the past week or so.

The only thing about the meeting capable of cheering us up was that the chairmen were were forced to subject themselves to a 2,500-word submission from Fulham's chairman and owner, Mohamed al Fayed, on his plans to reform the game. I gather he used the words: "We must put our own interests and those of our clubs first".

I doubt if there has ever been a more glaring example of how to preach to the converted, and he certainly wouldn't have been booed off the stage at an even more high-powered meeting of football club owners in Brussels two days earlier. The 18 clubs that make up G14 – an exclusive group of Europe's élite clubs which includes Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool – met to discuss matters of mutual interest, and last week's get-together produced a voluntary agreement to impose a salary cap on themselves in order to help control the spiralling ascent of players' wages.

Salary cap hardly seems an adequate description – you would need a stetson to cover some of the wages they fork out – but let's not split hairs. Considering that these are the very people who have lifted the salary ceiling to the stratosphere, they may not be the most appropriate body to haul it down.

You don't have to be much of a cynic to suggest that they are trying to pre-empt a higher authority imposing some well- overdue control in this area. A little bit of self-regulation at the right time can avert a mass of inconvenient legislation.

The scheme they are proposing involves a maximum of 70 per cent of turnover being spent on wages, and that includes managers, directors and backroom staff. It hardly needs pointing out that 70 per cent of Manchester United's turnover would be considerably more than, say, Derby County's.

Indeed, at the moment, United spend 50 per cent of their £146 million turnover on wages. At Arsenal it is 65 per cent, so the bigger clubs are hardly penalising themselves with this proposal while the clubs with much lower turnover will have even less chance of improving their playing strength.

The G14 clubs also intend the scheme to be self-policing, with verification carried out by the club's own auditors. Punishment for offenders was not mentioned.

For a salary cap to work every club needs to be tied to the same maximum, and it cannot be controlled by the clubs themselves. There has to be an independent arbiter with the power to discipline the transgressors, and who would that be? Fifa, the world authority, have lost so much of their credibility under Sepp Blatter, and in any case this is more a European matter. Would Uefa care to take on the big clubs? Perhaps they would if the European Commission decided that it would help the game, and it undoubtedly would, but I see no sign that Uefa have the balls for the job.

As for our own FA, one can only wonder how much testosterone remains in that organisation after the clubs were allowed to cut off Crozier in his prime.

Oddly enough, Crozier was talking about a salary cap. This would not have delayed his departure, because the clubs are frightened of it despite the number having to ask players to take voluntary pay cuts. Will his successor pick up the torch? Not if the clubs have a say in his appointment, and I fear they will have a major influence. You need to be a bit nimble-footed in the brain department to keep one step ahead of that lot, and Crozier's ability to be that was his downfall.

We have a long tradition of tough admin-istrators. Sir Stanley Rous used to run a tight ship at the FA back in the days when the title of secretary used to suffice. In that capacity, Ernie Walker kept the Scottish FA in order, as did Herbert Powell in Wales, and club chairmen found it difficult to misbehave when Alan Hardaker ruled the roost at Lytham St Annes.

I shudder to think what Hardaker would make of Al Fayed. The Harrods owner has put a reputed £100m into Fulham, who are in temporary accommodation at Loftus Road at the moment while he is locked into controversial planning applications to turn lovely old Craven Cottage into a Xanadu.

Referring to Crozier's use of international players to make money for the FA, he told the assembled chairmen: "The behaviour of the FA in this regard is appalling... I am not prepared to tolerate other people telling me what I can or cannot do with my investment." I'm sure there are many Fulham fans who could tell him what do with his investment, but the point is that his priority is likely not to be the survival of football as we know it but the chances of a return on the money he has put into the club.

It is significant that he refers to the club as his investment and says to his fellow chairmen that "we must maximise our returns". I agree with him that a strong Premier League benefits the game as a whole, but is this a strong Premier League? As an entity, I think not. His entreaty that "we must think of ourselves... we must maximise our returns" is not the sentiment of a man with the game's best interests at heart.

But he, too, talks about the need to control salaries and to curb the influence of agents. Who but the clubs have allowed the ballooning of both?

Crozier was not a wonderman. He was a sharp operator, perhaps too sharp for his own good, but he spotted what was wrong with the game and had the guts to push through some reforms to deal with the problems. He has left a large gap and I'm terrified of the people who are jostling to fill it.

Neck and cropper

Sports writing requires the frequent sticking out of your neck, and my nape bears too many scars for me to snigger at the misfortune of others in this respect.

However, it is a struggle to suppress a smile at those of the breed who had to munch their way through a mountain of words after the second day of the First Test of the Ashes series in Brisbane on Friday.

The Australian press particularly enjoyed dismembering England's first-day struggles, as you would expect. But they were fortunate in that their words were read before the contrasting fortunes of the second day.

Thanks to the time warp, the vitriolic verdicts of the English press appeared on our breakfast tables after Friday's transformation. Some fared better than others because they were circumspect enough to allow for a freak occurrence, like England playing well.

Others dived in with a strangely gleeful note, giving the impression that some of their condemnations had been carefully polished on the long flight over there. They will remember in future that no English ball team can be trusted to do anything predictable, as they may well have proved again by the time you read this.

The Aussies won the sarcasm prize. Under the headline "Is There Anyone in England Who Can Play Cricket?" one writer scoffingly suggested that Prince Charles had been asked to join the team but had replied: "I can't bat, but Camilla Parker Bowles." All very hilarious and all very egg-faced.