Should all clubs

[blingo]

Be made to disclose how much they pay for players?

[bobbo]

why ?

[grandad]

Why should they. Do you demand to know how much Tesco pays for the products they buy. None of any of our business how much a company pays.

[KJS]

Be made to disclose how much they pay for players?

All companies don't disclose that info so why should football clubs🙄

[Peabody]

Sorry Blingo but no. I am of the old school who thinks that other people's earnings are none of my business.

[Cambridge Pete]

As a retired FD my answer in no. Commercial confidentiality

[MJG]

Yes I believe they should, but then again I think there should be a lot more transparency in football and cost of players is just one step.

[rebel]

Why should they. Do you demand to know how much Tesco pays for the products they buy. None of any of our business how much a company pays.

There is an argument for all transfer fees to be disclosed. As for the Tesco analogy, yes you'd like to know if they buy in a pint of milk for 1p and sell it to you for 99p, but we Brits live in a world where we are happy to be 'ripped' off. That's why we have the CMA.

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/competition-and-markets-authority

[rebel]

Yes I believe they should, but then again I think there should be a lot more transparency in football and cost of players is just one step.

Nicely summed up.

[toshes mate]

This is a sober look at English football from Autumn 2016 when football authorities were once again caught with their pants down and I am unsure we have actually moved on from there given the current nonsenses surrounding  FFP and VAR  and the sufferings of clubs like Wigan.  As fans I believe we should expect more transparency since we have been more marginalised in the past few decades than ever before.

https://www.transparency.org.uk/english-football-needs-face-its-problems-and-fast

[deadcowboys]

While i agree with MJG, you will never get that in a capitalist system but you could in a socialist one.

[ALG01]

While i agree with MJG, you will never get that in a capitalist system but you could in a socialist one.

I agree with MJG too but ythink you can get the info more easilly in a capitaist society. You just have to make disclosure so.

[Twig]

Don't think it has anything to do with political systems. I don't see much transparency in any system be it Russia (communist), China (dictatorship) or the UK (capitalist).  I tend to agree that there should be more transparency in the sport and I totally agree that supporters have fallen down the priority pecking order of both the clubs and the administrators, but I'm not sure transfer fee disclosure is the right start point.

[Statto]

Agree with MJG and Twig - yes, and it's nothing to do with politics

Football clubs should be regarded as quasi-public institutions IMO. The "club" is a body of tens of thousands of supporters who were the before the current players, management and owners and will be there long after they're gone

And the industry is riddled with corruption and incompetence, which is possible because of the opacity 

Make everything transparent. Fees, agent payments, salaries (players and senior management), ownership structures, FFP, etc.

[Mince n Tatties]

Agree with MJG and Twig - yes, and it's nothing to do with politics

Football clubs should be regarded as quasi-public institutions IMO. The "club" is a body of tens of thousands of supporters who were the before the current players, management and owners and will be there long after they're gone

And the industry is riddled with corruption and incompetence, which is possible because of the opacity 

Make everything transparent. Fees, agent payments, salaries (players and senior management), ownership structures, FFP, etc.

Agree.

[alfie]

Agree with MJG and Twig - yes, and it's nothing to do with politics

Football clubs should be regarded as quasi-public institutions IMO. The "club" is a body of tens of thousands of supporters who were the before the current players, management and owners and will be there long after they're gone

And the industry is riddled with corruption and incompetence, which is possible because of the opacity 

Make everything transparent. Fees, agent payments, salaries (players and senior management), ownership structures, FFP, etc.

Agree.

Disagree re salaries, I'm sure most of us would be unhappy having our wages out in public domain, that is personal between employers and employees.

[The Rational Fan]

While i agree with MJG, you will never get that in a capitalist system but you could in a socialist one.

Socialists in many countries thought it was a good idea to force companies to disclose their CEO salaries, in the hope it would curb insane the salaries of CEOs.

Every time it has been implemented the opposite occurs and as CEOs are generally ego driven so once their salary is public they demand higher and higher salaries getting competitive with each other. The Barclays Bank CEO would be happy with £10m per year, until the papers publish that the CEO of a smaller bank is on £20m.

Disclosing Salaries will only push the top salaries higher and higher, leaving less money for mid range staff in the £50k to £150k per year range.

Of course, as socialist generally assume their policies will work better in their country than another country where the policy was tried and failed. Making it easier to compare salaries will make everything worse in football, i wish the opposite that is to go back to when we didn't know what people earnt, but knew the players had a big house, great car and holiday with the best.

Statto's argument that football clubs are quasi-public organisations and therefore require more transparency has more emotional weight, but reality is we don't have the German ownership model and the clubs have very little answering to the fans.

As for the owners being incompetent, I disagree as most of the clubs in trouble don't have incompetent owners but gambling owners. It's pretty common for teams like Hull, Bolton, Wigan, QPR, Blackburn and Sunderland to gamble their future championship budget to try and stay in the Premier League. Of course, if they fail to stay in the Premier League, the owner has to pour more money in just to stay in the Championship and a lot of owners won't save their club once Premier League is not possible.

So many Owners have a "Premier League or Die" attitude that results in the Death of their Club. Fortunately, I believe the Khans will support us even if we become a mid table championship Club.

[Egham White]

Even if they did who's to say they're telling the truth ?

[filham]

Just in the top two leagues where a lot of  wages are so high that they are immoral.
You cant compare a top footballers wage to earnings of other people , there is no link between work done and money paid.
We need to see that these highly paid players are behaving in a manner that shows they appreciate what we are giving them.

A better solution would be a wage cap to ensure that players are not give thesen unjustifiable amounts.

[The Rational Fan]

Just in the top two leagues where a lot of  wages are so high that they are immoral.
You cant compare a top footballers wage to earnings of other people , there is no link between work done and money paid.
We need to see that these highly paid players are behaving in a manner that shows they appreciate what we are giving them.

A better solution would be a wage cap to ensure that players are not give thesen unjustifiable amounts.

Disclosing very high wages only results in increasing the highest wages. It does sound logically, but the 40 (or so) times a "Socialist Government" has rewritten their countries law to disclose CEO wages that's what happens. I don't believe there is any case of "disclosing salaries for those earning over £500k per year" resulting in lower salaries, and pretty much always pushes top salaries much higher very quickly. Can anyone suggest why the EPL would be any different?

The Truth is as long as 80% of the EPL Fans support the top six teams, then the majority of the money will go to those players (like Fernandes and Son, etc) that make the difference between being a mid-table team and top-six team.