A cap on how much Premier League clubs can spend? It can become a reality.
Monday 29 April at 14:05
The short version
- The Premier League clubs will vote on a cap on transfer costs, wages and agent fees, writes The Times.
- The proposal limits how much clubs can spend based on TV money received by the bottom club in the league.
- The aim is to ensure competition and prevent the dominance of super-rich clubs
- A vote on the matter is expected at a shareholder meeting in London on Monday
- Manchester City and the Ineos group, involved in Manchester United, are expected to oppose the measure
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The Premier League clubs will be asked on Monday to support a proposal for a cap on spending for the first time, writes The Times.
The proposal is about the clubs not being able to spend more than a certain proportion of the bottom club in the Premier League receives in TV money.
This is how it can work:
- Premier League figures from last season show that bottom club Southampton received 104 million pounds in television money.
- A cap of, say, six times that amount would have given Manchester City and the other top clubs a cap of £624m on transfers, wages and agents.
- That will be slightly more than the 619.5 million that Manchester City spent last year.
The idea is to try to ensure that the Premier League remains competitive rather than being dominated by one or two super-rich clubs.
Cost caps mean that a limit is set on how much money football clubs can spend on players, wages and agents.
The aim is to keep the Premier League competitive and avoid a few rich clubs completely dominating.
The clubs may be limited to spending a certain proportion of the TV money they receive, for example no more than five times what the club receiving the least receives.
The clubs must vote on the proposal, and if 14 out of 20 clubs say yes, it is adopted.
If the cap is introduced, it will not necessarily mean that the clubs have to cut their expenses now, but it will put a limit on future expenses.
A vote on the cap is expected to be taken at a Premier League shareholders’ meeting in London, with further discussions on details such as the size of the cap before the annual meeting in June.
14 out of 20 votes will result in the proposal being adopted, according to the newspaper.
New rules from the 2025/2026 season will limit clubs to spending up to 85 percent of their total income on wages and transfer expenses.
Manchester City is expected to oppose the measure completely, while Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos group, which runs the football side of Manchester United, is also expected to strongly oppose the cap, according to The Times.
Everton and Nottingham Forest have this season been subject to points deductions due to breaches of rules already in place.
