Clubs have always been priced out, whether through sheer size of crowds, global marketing or local rules - Madrid get to set negotiate their own TV rights and can rack up huge debts that no Spanish bank would ever dare call in due to the Real link...
Decent individuals don’t need to be put off running a club, they just have to understand what’s realistic in terms of growth and achievement. I highly doubt Simon Sadler thinks we can win the Champions League, the Premier League or the FA Cup in the near future, but that hasn’t stopped him wanting to come in and try to improve his hometown club and community. He also won’t have built up his hedge fund by waiting for bigger hedge funds to give him more money to invest and by waiting for regulators to tell the bigger guys that they can’t pay as much for the (perceived) top talent; allowing him greater access...
Of course it’s cheeky of me to compare apples and oranges there, but the points clear; smaller clubs can become bigger clubs through smart strategies and genuine longer term thinking.
Just to pull it back to Chelsea, it’s not their fault a billionaire came calling, nor is it Man City’s. They just fitted the right profile for the investor at the time they were around. What would happen if a genuine Saudi consortium really does buy Newcastle and flexes it’s oil muscle? One of those 6 clubs - Arsenal or Spurs at a guess - becomes Everton and Newcastle fans get what they’ve always deserved
Re salary caps - a tiered approach can only be truly applied against revenue and Manchester United and Liverpool will always generate more revenue than Southampton and Burnley. That’s because more people want to watch Manchester United and Liverpool. What’s unfair about that in professional sport?
The last point first. Those clubs have had thirty years to build their global brand. A club like, I dunno, Leeds or Sheffield Wednesday or Villa haven't. They historically have been bigger or equal to other clubs like Chelsea or even Man United. Other clubs who may have achieved success haven't because of what has been effectively financial doping in the sport.
If a cycling team dopes for thirty years, you wouldn't let them just keep their medals and race again next year.
The game has been structured entirely to sell the brands globally of a few teams. That's literally written into the plans of the Premier League, it's minuted in select committee meetings, with nodding MPs approving of the desire to make global successes of these untapped brands. Words like marketisation and brand exposure aren't sporting words any more than salary cap is.
By tying salary caps to revenue at individual club level you essentially just perpetuate the current stasis (which I accept is better than some leagues before 20s tells me!)
If you set a cap at league level, how is that not sporting?. You can still coach, you can still choose how to put your squad together, you can still probably come up with all sort of dodgy enticement that suits bigger clubs. You've still got a bigger ground, better scouting, better youth recruitment, better facilities, more allure etc etc.
It seems a bit like the argument is that football is f1. Ferrari's are always faster so put nails in the tires of the other cars because what is sporting is ferrari winning. The race is the sport!
Tbh, I don't mind that club a) is richer than club b) in the same league. I find the cap a bit false but I don't know how else to redress that club a) is so rich (much more disproportionately than ever before) that it pays it's CEO more money than entire squads of players earn and could never even contemplate relegation ever or even a bottom half finish as money just fixes everything.
Sport is better if it's even. It just is. Then, when someone dominates, it's really special. Equality isn't realistic, of course it isn't but we're so far off that now it's almost seen as naive to think that fairness and finances can be discussed in the same breath.