Let’s face it; the greatest soccer league in the world is in a bad situation these days, thanks to the rampant cheating over a 10 year period where a billionaire royal family member and vice president of his country pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into a team, while cooking the books, lying, cheating and stealing all because of an over inflated ego and the premise that the rules are for everyone else and not for Middle East princes.
The big question hanging over the league today is whether you can have private investment, fierce competition and rules concerning finances that everyone should be following? It has become obvious that some don’t think they can.
But here’s a crazy idea… Perhaps the league’s leadership should look across the Atlantic and see exactly how MLS does its business to sustain their league, while making sure everyone plays by the same rules.
Yes, I can imagine my British friends spilling their pints and cups of tea while reading this crazy idea. But listen, because MLS’ cunning plan may just be worth considering. And let’s face it, it wouldn’t be the first time European football borrowed ideas from the USA. The old NASL starting experimenting with substitutions, offsides and even shootouts, while others looked on curiously and sometimes in horror. Though some of the ideas disappeared completely, others have influenced the game as we know it today.
MLS operates with a salary budget, roster restrictions and a series of mechanisms that does allow billionaire owners to spend a lot of money without allowing them to buy a team of superstars. Is their system complicated? Absolutely. If you have tried to understand MLS roster rules, as I have tried, it makes you wonder whether they have come up with some elaborate financial rules or created a different version of a FIFA Football Manager game. But trust me, or trust MLS, because there is a method to this madness.
The whole thing is based on the fact that owners can invest into their teams but the MLS rules determine how exactly the investments affect the playing squad.
Across the ocean, the traditional European model is that clubs have more freedom to spend, but where financial regulations attempt to ensure that spending is sustainable and, here is the key – properly reported. And the Premier League has been moving in this direction with their Squad Cost Rules, which in part is designed to protect competitive balance. But is it enough?
So, my friends from the sceptred isles, the jewel of the North Sea, look west. Look at MLS.
Of course, I’m not suggesting that EPL becomes a clone of MLS. By all means keep promotions and relegations. (I honestly hope that one day MLS would adopt this.) What should be adopted is the financial philosophy by allowing investment but with crystal clear boundaries around the competitive advantage that these investments can buy.
Yes, let’s look at the bad boys of English football – Manchester City. The issue isn’t that the team spent tons of cash but whether the rules were followed and whether their financial statement accurately reflected reality. With all the money in the league and all the opportunities for cheating, you would think that a system that states what and how much owners can spend on and what counts toward the competitive limit would have already be in place. It isn’t, but following MLS’ lead, it can be.
MLS shows that it is possible to combine private investment with mechanisms put in place to prevent these investments from determining outcomes on the field, where Manchester City can put a team out there that collects roughly $309 million per year in wages as opposed to Leeds United’s $98 million wage bill. (Capology.com)
The Prem doesn’t have to choose between American-style financial discipline and traditional English football traditions and culture, but they can learn from it.
Don’t become MLS but take the best ideas MLS has to offer in order to make the Premier League, the best league in the world, a level playing field that is not dictated by rich owners and their wallets when it comes to writing the rules.
