Koukash

Quote: Kosh "A thought that occurred to me last night...

What if a club were able to add £1 to it's SC for every £1 of Sky money it was willing to forgo? This would allow the rich clubs to increase their cap and buy better players while providing a larger pool of money to be distributed to the other clubs, somewhat offsetting the negative effects. It would also have the effect of increasing the net amount of money in the game.

There's probably any number of problems with that idea that I haven't thought of, mind. It's not far removed from the 'tax' system they had in ... ( I'm going to say US basketball, but I could be wrong on that - it was one of the big US sports anyway ). You could pay over the cap, but had to match every $1 excess with $1 paid to a fund which was distributed ( not sure if to other clubs, or to grassroots, or both ).

For me (repeating ad nauseum), I think there's only two things you should be trying to stop: clubs going bust, and clubs hogging all the talent. You can do both without a simple 'flat' cap. The first you address by rules about only spending what you can afford (though if a rich donor is prepared to give you money, you can spend it). The second you address with very tight limits on the number of players you can pay 'star' wages to. The point being that we should have a mechanism that would allow, say if Abramovich suddenly decided he was League fan, him to bring in Dan Carter ( and the veritable shed-load of great PR).

I've said many times, that I don't believe the "Wigan problem" pre-SL was due primarily to them having an outstanding 1st XIII, it was due to them sweeping up all the others too, on the bench and in the wider squad that were then kept away from the other teams. If Wigan in those days could only have 13 'stars', then the actual team put out on any one day (injuries, etc) would have been less dominant, and moreover, other clubs would have had access to the other players not in that list of 13.