Portsmouth chief: Opportunist clubs wanted salary cap to level playing field for Sunderland, Charlton, Ipswich and Co - but overhaul still needed

Mark Catlin admits the Football League’s ditched salary cap was ‘not far away’ from resolving long-standing concerns over sustainability.
Pompey chief executive Mark Catlin (left) still wants changes to ensure sustainability among Football League clubs. Picture: Joe PeplerPompey chief executive Mark Catlin (left) still wants changes to ensure sustainability among Football League clubs. Picture: Joe Pepler
Pompey chief executive Mark Catlin (left) still wants changes to ensure sustainability among Football League clubs. Picture: Joe Pepler

And he still believes appetite remains among clubs to create a more suitable blueprint.

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Effectively it is back to the drawing board for the Football League and their members over how to safeguard against overspending.

It means a reversion to the Salary Cost Management Protocols (SCMP), which links player-rated expenditure to turnover.

But Catlin isn’t against change. Far from it.

Pompey’s chief executive said: ‘The disappointing thing in all of this is it’s not that far away from working, but a salary cap has to be aligned with SCMP, which is affordability.

‘The cap should be dictated by your profit and loss. I don’t see why that’s difficult, it’s just common sense to me.

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‘As long as we put the resources into policing it and monitoring it, a club should be allowed to spend what it can afford.

‘Then you get into the realms of what owners can put in.

‘Our view is – and has been all along – if you are going to be suffering losses for the length of those players’ contracts and the owners have the money they say they have to subsidise that, then put it in via a bond.

‘It’s pretty simple really, we are making it difficult for ourselves.

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‘There is a tinge of disappointment in that I feel we have shifted too much to one side of the agreement. If there had been more central ground, we could have done something special.

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‘That has been taken away. However, there is still an opportunity helping people come together with the PFA, with larger clubs in each relevant division, and work on a sustainable model.

‘Not a model which was just built on one size fits all – because one size doesn’t fit all in any business environment our level works in.’

The SCMP was initially scrapped following the wage cap’s August 2020 introduction.

Now it has returned – while the Football League, its members and the PFA explore an alternative which all can agree on.

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Catlin added: ‘To be fair, we did table some suggestions pre the vote being taken, but some clubs were so hell bent on levelling the playing field, they didn’t really want to accept what I consider to be obvious flaws in the salary cap.

‘It was clearly and definitely an opportunist model of some clubs to use covid as a levelling of the playing field.

‘We made suggestions pre-covid which were rejected and we will continue to make suggestions.’

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