Sigh

Last one for tonight, I think.

Arseblog today has a good post on Arsenal happenings…and a bit in there about salary caps for players, spurred on by the potential transfer of Eto’o and the reports of what Man City may be paying to lure him. While I can see where some of the fury comes from it’s not a position I’ve ever agreed with, at least so far as it’s animated by disgust at the actual size of the salaries as opposed to the effect unregulated competition can have on competitive integrity (I’ve said before that American sports are socialist, not an original observation- that’s meant as a compliment). I’ve given my more specific objections before, but here’s an additional one: it’s difficult for fans of a team like Arsenal in particular to call for salary caps and such, since so many players at Arsenal are on very nearly equally ridiculous wages. I don’t have the list to hand and these things tend not to be fully disclosed, but let’s assume that there’s at least one and maybe more players at Arsenal on 80,000 a week- that’s the usual figure reported for Adebayor.

The average teacher in the UK makes 32,000 a year or so, according to a quick Google; a player on 80,000 therefore makes approximately two and a half times a teacher’s yearly salary in a single week, or 130 times that salary in a year. A player on 200,000 makes approximately 6.25 times the teacher’s yearly in a week, or 325 times that in a year. Those figures are not exactly the same, of course- but is the difference between wildly immoral to the point of needing legal prohibition and just the cost of doing business that fine? In Either case we’re still talking about triple-digit multiples of the yearly salary for an average lower middle-class to middle class person, earned for what most would call a far less socially useful activity. If you’re a fan of a lower-level team whose players are semi-pro or else professional on wages comparable to that of a teacher and you believe in a salary cap as policy, I still would strongly disagree with you; but at least on the level of fandom, you wouldn’t be a hypocrite. If you’re a fan of a team which routinely pays 80,000/wk to players and calling for a salary cap, you’re both contributing to the problem yourself by paying in much of the money used to fund those wages and benefiting from the thing you condemn by enjoying both the entertainment and the success deriving from the players which your club has purchased at the wages you consider obscene.

You could of course argue that it would be impractical for a single club to unilaterally disarm by voluntarily capping wages at a low level and accepting the competitive penalty for doing so; that it should be the role of a Europe-wide body to institute rules for all clubs; and that it asks too much of fans to think that they should desert their club over these issues or else encourage it to pursue a counter-productive plan for purely moral (or moralistic) reasons. I would agree with all of that as reasonable; and that’s why I won’t criticize here City’s owners for playing hard and fair under the rules as they stand, or City’s fans for enjoying Eto’o’s brilliance next year if he indeed joins them.

As I believe I’ve said, I think in the long term the most viable system is a combination of a European Super League, serious player unionization, major profit-sharing on a Europe-wide basis, and probably a North American-style collectively bargained overall revenue split system. That combination at least will go some way towards stabilizing the competitive integrity issue, which is probably essential in the end albeit politically impossible in the short term. But if people believe there’s ever going to be a serious reduction in top end wages- ones which are triple digit multiples of yearly middle class salaries- they’re likely to be disappointed. So long as people pay to see this sport, the money will have to go somewhere, and it may as well be to players and not team owners.

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And speaking of such, this latest gambit by Usmanov is really remarkably poorly done. As the Guardian makes clear, the potential gain for him is obvious- send out a capital-raising call, hope that in a down economy it won’t be fully subscribed, use the dilution of other equity stakes to increase his overall share of the club, and set the whole thing in motion by using fan unrest and frustration with Arsenal’s lack of movement in the transfer market in recent years as the goad by advertising it as a way to increase Arsene’s budget. The hand’s been misplayed slightly since Arsene’s already signed one player in this window, but more than that- the attempt is clumsy, and more than a little transparent. Usmanov appears persistent, but at this point it’s difficult to read moves like this as anything other than a sign of weakness: Stan Kroenke has played things quietly and in a conciliatory manner and managed to substantially increase his holdings in the club, while Usmanov is reduced to launching what is essentially a publicity stunt and cheap theatrical from without. A man who chooses such poor means is a fool or desperate, and he’s not a fool. I think he realizes the game is slipping away from him, and is looking for a long-shot play to change the state of affairs.