"When you see Premier League clubs like Portsmouth struggling, you know there is a real problem." The thing is Jon, it's been driven by greedy players and agents, from The Premiership to CC2. £4.1m a year for a Premiership player is bad enough but £60,000 a year for a league 2 footballer?

When clubs spending 80% of their turnover on player wages is seen as a 'good' thing then players should be looking at themselves; a Fifa imposed wage cap at £300,000 a year should sort it. Still twice the pay of the Prime Minister.

well said in total agreement

It's up to the clubs to organise their finances. You can't blame the players for asking for as much as possible.

The clubs can say 'no'. It is their decision. I'm sure the vast majority of fans would support them.

So Jon was right then Cheltenham, there is a real problem. Are you implying that Jon himself is being greedy?

Nice use of rhyme in the headline phil!!

Football at all levels has lived beyond it's means for many years now, there are people having to take wage cuts to keep their jobs in all kinds of industry, why should football be any different?
Premiership & Championship players are on stupid money, how is anyone worth £125,000 per week?,but don't blame the players, if I was in their position I'd take the money, but clubs like Ipswich have to be realistic, but still compete, now if they were paid on results........??!!

Yup - football has been in fantasy land for some time now. The business model is not sustainable and clubs will continue to fail.

Clearly the 'fit and proper person' test for owner so Prem clubs does not work.

The owners of Portsmouth have been absolutely irresponsible. How can you run up a debt with HMRC of over £10M? How did they expect to pay it off? Do they not understand the basics of finance?

Not trying to give clubs,or greedy players a excuse,but fans impatience for instant success,must take a small portion of the blame,booing constantly,if their club,which used to be good,are in a slump,instead of being patient,oh and charging,over 30 quid for a championship game is criminal.

Phil.
Great Headline!

Football has been paying it's self to much for years now, only a matter of time before the bubble burst! A local non league team near me pays one player £200 per week on gates of around 100 !!! So not just the top clubs acting like lemmings ! And to be Mr Doom and Gloom, I think it's going to get a lot worse.

It's long about time that they put a cap on players salaries at all levels of football..why do some of them need £150k a week?-it's disgusting.
To be honest some of these clubs get what they deserve for overspending..if there's more money going out than coming in then you're obviously not running your club properly - basic maths.
I hope we've learnt our lessons here.

I would like to see players paid a small, basic salary, and then some sort of bonus system - goals, wins, clean sheets etc. Surely that would boost performances and the quality of football? And probably be a more efficient use of club finances to pay wages.

The thing is, ALL clubs would have to have the same salary structure of basic plus bonuses across the world, even if the actual amount paid was different (as it would likely be) making it a FIFA issue rather than UEFA or FA etc. Because if some clubs decided to still pay these overinflated wages as they do now, I would imagine players would prefer to play for them rather than accepting lower salaries with bonuses .... so it would have to be an all-or-nothing FIFA directive to be implemented all at once, globally, at all levels of professional football. The competitiveness would come from richer clubs offering greater bonuses, but the salary would be capped across the board at an agreed level (whether as an actual sum, or a percentage of the parent club's wealth?)

I dunno, but something has to give. Its sad to see any club go bust or be docked points endlessly, and it doesn't matter how "big" the club is - Chester's predicament is every bit as important as Pompey's or Leeds', if not more so, despite the fact that they may command attendances only 20% of those at Fratton Park and be a "smaller" club. To the fans of Chester, it is THEIR club, THEIR community, THEIR Saturday afternoons. And they don't have the bend-over-backwards-at-any-cost-because-we-can't-be-seen-to-fail Premier League bosses backing them desperately! Seems that the PL will stop at nothing to make sure no clubs fail, whereas the lower league clubs are allowed to go to the wall. I think in hindsight, Marcuse Evans' takeover at our fair club will be a good thing, as he is absorbing any financial shocks from the debt - we could so easily have done a Luton had we still been in that debt without his assistance!

Scary times, and it's far from over for the world of football. Much like the 1980s was the era of rich Italian clubs, 1990s-2000s for rich English clubs, I think 2010s could well see a shift back to the continent - maybe Spain?

Also the often-heard cry that 'If we don't pay them top wages, they will go abroad', is just nonsense.

So what? Let them go (or try to). If all of the top-earners in the Prem left to play in Spain (also full of bankrupt clubs), that would just level the playing field.

Is anyone really missing Ronaldo?

Hello magazine and the tabloids and a tanning salon somewhere in Cheshire I think!

Cheltenham, I agree with you that players bankrupt clubs, but the primeminister has bankrupted the whole country!!!!!!!!!!

(I wouldn't want him playing for us either even though he's cheaper).

Players don't bankrupt clubs. The idiots who meet their demands with money that they don't have are the ones who do that.

There was a time where no player got paid more than the manager and I believe it was Booby Robson that implemented that (I may be wrong)

I don't get paid more than my manager or directors at my company.

But there are some great examples in the modern game - Arsenal, OK they aren't winning the trophies they used but they will always be cash productive and they aren't a million miles away from winning the PL this season.

Some really good points made on this debate. Like others have said, unfortunatly this won't be the end of it. I think what will really make people sit up is if one of the big boys gets busted i.e. United or Liverpool

I read P'mouth were running at 90% of Turnover on wage bill... really is no surprise they are screwed and we await the continued domino affect.

I have to say it was quite funny to see all the portsmouth fans get well above their stations when the arabs came along, giving it the biggun that they were the next Chelsea. Little did they know that they got the only arabs without 2pence to rub together - ha ha.

Nothing gainst Portsmouth but that P***K that rings that bell constantly really winds me up.

Basically football needs a massive overhaul in the way that it is run financially ,which is unlikely to happen until some big names fall. Like Alan Sugar has said before football clubs are not run as a normal business should be and then you have people like Ridsdale ruining Leeds then Rotherham and now Cardiff. However you look at this it is always the fans who end up at the stinky end.

Deducting points at the start of the season per X million pounds worth of debt would force clubs to reign in their finances!

at the end of the day, its upto the owners to look after their own clubs. they are the only ones who see their bank info. if they can see they make a loss each month then things will go t#ts up! its upto them to make changes to generate more revenue.

peter storey @ pompy is obviously blind and dumb.

i see the owners as big gamblers, and mr marcus evans could be another.. after the top football, champions league.. and if you fail everything goes!

It's all Jimmy Hill's fault : he got the maximum wage abolished in the 60s. (3 points for a win was also his idea, as was all-seater stadia. All of these ideas have proved disastrous for the game.)
And now? Make each club work within the same salary budget per division : I would suggest £1m per annum for Premier League clubs (and, yes, that's for the squad not per player), reducing as you move down each division.

I read somewhere that in the fifties Arsenal were getting 60,000 gates each week and paying the players £10, how times have changed. And for the record, when Town had their great side 30 years ago it was always reported that we needed gates of 15,000 to break even. That wouldn't happen now, even at today's prices.

You can see why HMRC is getting upset. Millions owed in back taxes and PAYE (we're back to players' wages crippling the clubs again - what's 40% of £50,000 a week ...), then the owners put the club into admin and HMRC is at the back of the queue (along with local traders, suppliers etc.), behind all the football creditors. Because "it shouldn't be like an ordinary company administration," they say. "This is football, we're special".