Kieran Maguire is seriously unimpressed as Man City hammered by confirmed £354m blow
Man City would lose a number of star players if a ‘fanciful’ Europe-wide wage cap was introduced by Uefa.
That is the view of finance expert Kieran Maguire, who spoke exclusively to Football Insider about the proposals put forward by Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin.
Ceferin has suggested that a Europe-wide salary cap could be introduced to ‘restore competitive balance’ across the continent.
The Uefa chief claimed that talks have already been held with the European Commission and that clubs had already agreed with the idea.
Premier League clubs would likely be heavily affected by such a cap, with Man United’s record-breaking £384million wage bill set to be impacted.
Man City trail slightly behind their arch-rivals with a wage bill of £354million, but the Premier League champions would also likely have to lower their costs if a cap was introduced.
Maguire labelled Ceferin’s proposal as ‘fanciful’ and ‘nonsense’ and explained that players would migrate to ‘low-cost economies’ if the cap was ever introduced.
“Ceferin’s suggestion of a Europe-wide salary cap to restore balance is fanciful,” Maguire told Football Insider.
“First of all, we have 55 or 56 nations across Uefa, meaning there are 55 or 56 different tax regimes.
“Players are ultimately interested in their net salary, and therefore if you have a salary cap for individual players then they will migrate to low-cost economies which isn’t necessarily going to improve competitive balance.
“If the cap is set too high it will only affect a handful of clubs – if you set it too low there is a risk that players could move to other continents to play their football.
“The chances of that are remote, however, given Europe’s advantage over other markets.
“Policing the rules would also prove to be very difficult, and so I’d describe Ceferin’s suggestion as nothing more than nonsense as opposed to a genuine attempt to address cost issues.“
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