Quote LeedsDave="LeedsDave"I don't think we should stifle the better run clubs with a lower salary cap just because Bradford choose to pay Jamie Langley over £100k a year*. If a club chooses to live above it's means then this kind of thing will happen. Look at London - utilizing the full cap doesn't guarantee success either.
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Circular though, isn't it? There's a few clubs, maybe as many as 8 or 9, who if they decided [uunilaterally[/u to start living within their means, would see those means decrease in a downward spiral.
Spending the full cap might not guarantee success, but spending significantly under it, pretty much ensures failure.
If it was 3 or 4 clubs struggling financially and the rest thriving, they could be cut adrift and the rest could happily sail away. Unfortunately, it is the other way around - 3 or 4 doing well, the rest struggling. And 3 or 4 isn't enough to run a league. The top clubs need to be 'stifled' because there are so few of them and they need somebody to play, who can 'challenge' them. They'll carry on winning every year, but once they start winning every week interest will wane quickly.
The weakness of other clubs holding Leeds or Wigan back might well frustrate, but to a large extent it (the other's weakness) is what their success is built on. If by some miracle there were suddenly a dozen other big clubs competing with you with similar resource, you'd need a good deal less brasso. If the weak got even weaker, then where's the challenge? The big clubs have got the rest exactly where they'd want them, I imagine.