Ranson On Salaries

Last updated : 18 December 2008 By CCFC
Coventry City Chairman Ray Ranson has been talking about finances.

In an article as part of the club's e-zine.

At this time of year, finances are at the top of everyone's agenda and it was no different when I attended a meeting of the Football League chairmen at Derby County this week.

As we are all well aware, these are challenging times, and there has been considerable conjecture about the future of football finance.

While nothing in this day and age is that predictable, I feel that the Premier League will maintain its current level of domestic television funding raised through Sky, Setanta and, as of next season, ITV.

While maintaining and increasing advertising revenues will be very testing for the media companies, there has a massive demand for content and there are now more players - such as BT and Yahoo - on the media scene who want a slice of the action.

But while domestic level of finance may stay level, I believe there will be an increase from overseas media rights as the Premier League continues to push up its popularity beyond our shores and right across the globe.

In one way that is good news for us. While Premier League clubs continue to buy abroad, there is still a considerable traffic of players upwards from the Championship to the Premier League and that income is vital so we want top clubs to have money available to spend.

But, as every chairman outside the top flight will tell you, the gap between the Premier League and the Championship continues to widen and that is not good for the game.

People have talked about salary caps but I do not believe that will ever happen, because players and the players' union would never agree. Players would simply go elsewhere to play and earn.

I can, however, see each club have a maximum they can spend on wages across their whole squad to limit the damage that salaries do to clubs.

On another issue I can also see a cap being introduced on the number of foreign players allowed in first team squads outside the Premier League, which will not have a massive impact on many clubs at our level.