How a Premier League spending cap can stop the destructive race of the richest clubs

As the English top flight moves to vote on a rare measure to safeguard its future, Miguel Delaney explains why such a drastic change to the framework of the league is needed

The Premier League could modify the current Profit and Sustainability Rules (Getty Images)

After a storm, an anchor has been sent down to bring some calm perhaps. A season that has seen the Premier League castigated for off-field controversy may yet conclude with one of their better boardroom decisions. On Monday afternoon, the 20 clubs voted to move the potential implementation of the ‘anchoring’ rule to the next stage. That would be where spending is linked to the broadcasting income of the club that receives the least. It ended up 16 against four, which in this case indicated the logic of the decision.

While the proposal will now go to the annual general meeting for the full vote and while the actual details are still to be confirmed, its principle should be praised at least.

It would be a rare move in modern football that doesn’t just see the wealthiest clubs accumulate more revenue to allow them to spend more, as has been the case for most of the last 40 years. It would instead actively mitigate against their ability to generate wealth. So, at a stroke, it is a more equitable rule.

That is long overdue. It would encourage sustainability and also act as a first move in suppressing the maddening wage race that has led to everything from cost-control punishments to ticket price rises.

The hope is it would be the start of wider initiatives across European football. Executives, who are usually critical of almost anything the Premier League does, were already declaring it ‘intriguing’.

It probably shows the competition had reached a point of absurdity when debates about financial regulation dominated the entire season, but it is also why the clear logic of proper rules needs to be stressed. This directly affects the games you watch, and how well your team can do.

For all the debates about who can invest and business models, too, something that is often overlooked in football is that the sport’s actual ‘product’ isn’t about stars or super-squads but competitive games. That is what drives interest, because it creates drama, which creates a narrative.

That’s the other point always worth stressing in these debates. ‘Competitive balance’ doesn’t actually happen organically. It requires heavy regulation to prevent wealthier clubs from sailing away. That’s why the Football League introduced gate receipt sharing in the early 20th century, to mitigate against the power of the big-city clubs. That’s why American sport has been obsessed with draft systems. Football is ultimately dependent on co-operation so you can put on properly competitive games.

This is a very difficult balance to strike, though, which is precisely why these arguments have raged for so long.

Everton have been docked points this season for failing profit and sustainability rules (Peter Byrne/PA Wire)

It’s also why alliances on this didn’t necessarily go the way people expected. Although the most animated argument in the Premier League over the last year has been the perception that the old ‘big six’ want to keep the rest in their place, that isn’t how the voting has gone at all.

Instead, it was only the two Manchester clubs from that group that went against in this stage of the voting, with Aston Villa joining them. Chelsea abstained.

If Villa’s decision is a surprise, that of the Manchester clubs isn’t. They earn the most commercial revenue. It’s nevertheless interesting to ponder how City would have voted on this at different points in the last 16 years.

None of this is to say the rules are guaranteed to be perfect, or that there will not be unforeseen consequences.

How these regulations work will be dependent on the details that are eventually voted. It is expected they will include transfer fees, wages and agents fees, partly to both be in line with Uefa and also to stave off possible challenge by the Professional Footballers’ Association. The latter would have a legal case if it was only applied to salaries, even though escalating wages have been the great driver in where modern football has gone. Spending would also likely be anchored to TV income alone, since that is centralised and relatively steady. The ratio is similarly expected to be around 4.5 to 5 to 1, which would have meant the most anyone could have spent on their squad last season was just over £500m.

Through all of that, one of the arguments being put forward from the Manchester clubs is that it’s absurd that Kylian Mbappe is on the market, the Premier League could easily afford him, and yet none of their team are in for him.

The spending cap would use the bottom-placed club in television revenue as an ‘anchor’ (Getty Images)

That example, however, only serves to show the logic of the rules. Mbappe is only paid so much because a state-owned club can afford it, with that artificially inflating the entire transfer market. And yet his presence hasn’t actually served Ligue 1, since the French competition is going through a crisis in terms of attracting broadcasters. The reality of football history is that competitive games are more important. Fewer people actually want to watch stars if there is no jeopardy and they aren’t being pushed to sporting excellence. The Premier League itself has been a great example of this.

It didn’t have the global stars of La Liga or PSG for most of the last few decades but still outstripped all competitions in terms of broadcasting deals because it sold the idea of more competitive games and storylines. This is a long-term reality the Spanish league has actively been wrestling with. Through 2009 to 2018, La Liga had the two most glamorous squads that have probably ever been put together, but that was as a consequence of concentrating most wealth in the top two, so the rest of the league was hollowed out. They are now seeking to reset that. The Premier League, it should hope, may pre-empt a similar problem. It’s all the more necessary as concern grows about Manchester City’s dominance.

Man City voted against the proposal of a spending cap (EPA)

Another argument has been that this could affect the Premier League’s supremacy, but that is another absurdity. The competition already collectively pays £2bn more than any other league. Such immense superiority can bring strange decisions, as those involved become obsessed with sustaining that position and don’t want to do anything to affect it. Such conservatism, however, usually only makes decline more likely. If anything, that superiority means the Premier League has the breathing space to bring more logic to its rules, to move away from a destructive race.

This decision represents precisely that. It's why it's being described as "future-proofing". It won’t be perfect, and everyone is awaiting the details, but it is the right step.