The 100k homegrown rule only comes into force from 2015.

Actually man utd are the second lowest spending of the big 6 in the premiership era - only nal have spent less of the teams currently occupying 1-6 in the premier league!

Of course every club can make big signings - but it think it should be to compliment their youngsters rather than to overrun - it's easy enough to bring in a couple with the salary cap, adding exemptions just means more coming in.

On the subject of cherry picking, some seem to want to paint some of the big teams as monsters coming in the middle of the night to rip young innocent academy players from their beds kicking and screaming. All clubs get cherry picked at times, tomkins, eastmond, graham etc - except it doesn't stop the clubs invested in youth turning around and producing a dozen more - if any club had more fed trained then home grown players I'd say it would be a fair argument, but saints, Wigan, and Leeds all produce more than they bring in

The great advantage of the Golden Ticket idea is that cash could then be spread around - so a Bradford or a Wakefield (other clubs are available) rather than go into administration OR have to sell off their playing staff could sell off their ticket and use the cash to keep afloat while restructuring.
Taking Wakey's plight last year, wouldn't they rather have kept Tim Smith and sold the ticket?
It obviously depends upon there being a market to sell the ticket, I can't believe it would only be Dr K who would take advantage of this.

Net or gross? And is that adjusted for inflation?

Man Utd have broken the British Transfer record 3 times in the premier league era, no other team has done it more than once. Of the 100 biggest transfers of the premier league era (adjusted for inflation) Man Utd account for 18 of those, second only to Chelsea. With just those 18 transfers accounting for over half a billion pounds.


How does a marquee allowance allow big signings to over-run their youngsters? Having a marquee allowance actually does the opposite in that it makes it more accessible for a club to not get 5 or 6 mediocre overseas players and pay then 75k a year, but to get 1 super star and pay him £400k a year and fill the gap with youngsters.

I have no idea about man utd, I read, ahem skimmed, an article in the financial times about it, this is all I can remember! I shall concede to superior knowledge if needs be the case on the matter!

As for bringing in a marquee not affecting bringing youngsters through - I don't believe for a second clubs would "instead of" bringing 5/6 mediocre players through they'll bring in 1 marquee, it'll be 4/5 plus the marquee, who will as have the advantage of being undropable, regardless of who rises through the ranks. And it won't be 4/5 as the none fed trained quota is rising to 7 again (terrible idea) and that's without counting the numerous ways around it

Also, clubs have a finite amount of money (even Salford) - if they're choosing to spend 400k on a marquee signing, that money has to come out of the budget somewhere else! And given the previous history a lot of clubs have in this country, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if it's young player retention!

Salford sign rangi chase on a 4 year contract, theo fages has to adopt a new position to compensate etc. (I know the arguments about this, he's not ready yet, it'll take the pressure off him etc etc etc, but this is the reality of it)

Currently only the bigger clubs can afford to buy the best players whilst still producing their own. Surely a system where some of this wealth is re distributed is better for the game?

A certain Leeds player who I've know since school told me over half his salary doesn't count on the cap because he's an academy product.

The 100k home grown cap cap? No it hasn't.

The 100k cap cap is replacing the long serving bonus (which is rubbish and isn't fit for purpose) and the ets dispensation (because those payments are to be made from the rfl instead of the club from now on I believe)

Even then, do you think 50k + a couple of 10k (even on a good year you're probably only looking at 5 or so players in the England team) so roughly 100k cap space is all Leeds will benefit from the new rule?