Man City and Man United to block Premier League spending cap – Stefan Borson
Manchester City and Manchester United are likely to succeed in their efforts to block the Premier League from introducing a spending cap for next season.
That is the view of former Man City financial adviser Stefan Borson, who exclusively told Football Insider it’s going to be difficult for the Premier League to introduce any sort of anchoring system.
The Times reported on 9 January the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) are preparing to oppose new plans for anchoring, which will limit clubs’ spending to five times the amount the bottom club receives in TV and prize money on transfers, wages and agents.
It is claimed the PFA has been in contact with Man City and Man United, who also oppose the proposals.
Two-thirds of the Premier League’s 20 clubs must agree to bring in the new rules before they can be officially put in place.
Spending is currently linked to the revenue of clubs under the profit and sustainability rules (PSR).
Man City and Man United are opposing anchoring system
Borson insisted the PFA would likely succeed if it took legal action against the Premier League over its plans to implement an anchoring system.
“I think it’s going to be hard for anchoring to come in,” Borson told Football Insider.
“If you remember what we are doing at the end of the season, the expectation is that PSR finishes, so this current season is the last season of the PSR regime.
“Although we have next season the assessment of this current season under PSR, next season will be about the squad cost control, which will replicate in some ways the Uefa system.
“On top of that, they were talking about also applying an anchoring system, which effectively caps gross spend on wages at a multiple of the prize money of the lowest team.
“If the lowest team gets £100million of prize money through broadcast revenue from the Premier League and for their finishing position, the top team couldn’t spend more than £500million.
“I think it’s just not going to fly because there are big issues with anything that is effectively a salary cap, whether it be ‘hard’ like you can’t spend more than this or ‘soft’ and the effect is that there is effectively a salary cap.
“I think City and United opposing it is probably not the key point.
“The key point is probably the PFA threatening litigation because I think they probably would succeed, so my guess is that they will not try and implement anchoring at all and they will leave it at the squad cost control.”
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