The 20 PL chairmen had a meeting to talk about a a proposal which would limit the amount of money a wealthy owner can put into the club to cover for loses. 14 out of 20 have agreed while, Manchester City, Fulham and Aston Villa are believe to be agains the control. 

Now i think this limit control should regulate the amount of money teams can spend bringing in foreign players. maybe set a limit of say 35M a season for non english players a season. This would do a few things

1) It would limit teams like City and Chelsea from spending crazy amounts.
2) It would give a rise to growing home talent (lets be real english talent has been in decline for years now)
3) Give smaller teams chances to compete against richer teams

Anyways i think control of spending is great i hope every league implements something along those lines to even everyone out especially in Spain.

sounds like a good idea, so every team is equal and each team has players same amount of quality. but 35m is abit too little i think 50m at least.

Then in order for that to happen, we must reduce the ridiculous price tags of foreign players. Especially clubs like Porto!

yes Heinsinburg like CR7 was worth bloody 80M! 

@samuel999: Nice one ;)

@MRarsenal500: I think 50m would be fair, too. Not all the huge spending is going to single, 40m players. A lot of it is also in bundles of 5m-15m players, which is usually a sign more of squad-building than nabbing a superstar player.  35m would be too little, I agree.

But speaking to the larger question: what effect might that have upon the competitiveness of the Premier League? While I'm no fan of how much money is in the game, I think it could be argued that much of the competitive nature of the English league, both internally and with relation to other leagues that we're enjoying today has come as a result of this influx of (highly-priced) star players from abroad. Chelsea were a respectable team before Abramovic, but it wasn't until we suddenly saw the appearance of players like Essien, Shevchenko, Makelele, Cech, Ballack, Drogba etc, that the gridlock of Man Utd vs Arsenal every year was challenged.

Then, as those two teams (and others, such as Liverpool) tried to keep up, the EPL saw an influx of high-value players who had been starring in other leagues, which in turn led to Man City getting in on the game, and poaching from such lowly outfits as a CL-winning Barcelona, Arsenal and Athletico Madrid. A lot of money has been spent assembling squads in the English league over the last decade, and the internal competitiveness which is the main reason we often claim it is the best league in the world, is the result of that expenditure.

Can you really blame other clubs/leagues for raising prices, when the market in the Premier League was such a buying market? Especially when that purchasing is taking away their best prospects for the future of their club? Speaking as a Tottenham fan, if someone wants to buy Bale, then we're putting a huge fricking price-tag on him, because he's the best we've got, and we don't want to lose him. I think it's fair to say that the clubs in leagues like that of Portugal and France feel the same way about it when English clubs come knocking to take away their home-grown star...

In terms of how the EPL has fared against other leagues in that time? Well, to show for all this, we have had 8 of the last decade's CL finalists, and not a year has gone by without an EPL team in the semis; often two.

That's a pretty good return, in terms of quality. The question is: was it worth the price?

Maybe; maybe not. What do you think? I just think we're a little too quick, at least in England, to forget that side of the high-prices issue. It cost a lot, but we also got a lot for it. That's worth bearing in mind.

@Heisinburg,

This is too funny. I know you're trying to piss me off. You've been doing it ever since we had the discussion about my boastful Portugal attitude. My tend to brag about everything related to Portugal can surely be irritating. Yeah, I know that from experience with my brother.

However, the fact that clubs are willing to give such enormous amounts of money is just a compliment; our players are skillful and wanted from several other big clubs. After all, look how our previous players are enjoying success. The players, close to every single one of whom have been bought from us by big clubs, are current stars or have been.

Anyway, I'll try to be more calm and humble regarding Portuguese matters.. Cheers again, Heis.

This is a Interesting Thread.
This meeting occured a few weeks ago if memory serves right. Nothing was finalized but their was a real feeling that most clubs want some regulation in place. The problem was on deciding what kind of regulations.

The Naysayers fall into 2 groups:
#1) Smaller Clubs Looking to Sell - Everton & Villa are opposed to any sort of regulation for fear that they will never be able to sell their clubs to a well-financed buyer if these rules are in place.

#2) Sugar-Daddy Clubs - City and Fulham (who are owned by a less rich sugar daddy) are completely against any kind of regulation for obvious reasons. Likewise, Chelsea is pretty much against any REAL regulations. The only thing they would agree to is a rule insisting that no club go into debt. In other words, RA would have to write off the debt incurred by his future expenditures (something that he obviously doesn't care about as he's aleady done it twice).

The Majority of the other clubs want some Serious Regulations in place for fear of where the league will head.
However, the exact measures are still being debated.
The Traditional power-houses (United, Liverpool, & Arsenal) along with a handful of the perrenia midtable clubs are in favour of a complete "Break-Even" rule (As seen in Germany). This would mean that a club, irrespective of its owners, would be allowed to only spend the money it itself generates on tranfers and wages. Of course, there would be a grace period of a few years for club to get their affairs in order before the regulations were put in place.

Some of the other clubs want to support a fair play system but fear that the one above will only serve to further strengthen the high-earning clubs. As such, some alternatives were that an absolute wage cap be used as in the US (never going to happen) or that a % wage cap be implemented (e.g. only up to 50% of a clubs finances can be spent on player wages). 

The point is that it looks like there's some real possibility that something will happen but only time will tell if the clubs will agree ones that hard-line enough to make any real difference.

I think it's a great idea, £30M sounds good to me. let proper ENGLISH football commence motherfuckers without all this diving shit foreign players bring into the league. 

@footaholic very interesting points there. That wage cap of 50% of earnings seems promising. As far as I know only 11 teams have to accept the terms for it to be passed so that means that if there is a decent proposal it will pass seeing as the majority want changes. 

In all honest opinion the EPL needs better home talent. They want England national team to succeed then it needs a stricter policy to make teams develope their stars instead of purchasing them overseas. I think at the moment EPL teams are required to have 5 English players in the 25 player list. I think they should increase to 9 and make it that at least 2 players either in starting 11 or subs be from the club's respective youth academy. Barcelona succeed due to the fact they can field a complete line up of youth products. In normal situations they normally field 7 or 8 players from their academy. I think more teams need to follow in that example. Arsenal and Ajax also do a good job in that. 

The above was more of a factual recount.
Below I present my personal views...

Some of you may be unsurprised to hear that I am wholy in favour of the "break even rule" which, after all is designed after the UEFA FFP Regulations. Now, I understand the argument that those clubs who produce a higher profit would benefit at the expense of lesser clubs. Allow me to rebut...

In any business, those who are industrious enough to produce more profit are by logical extension capable of investing more money into their infrastructure and future growth. You'll never hear from competitors that such actions aren't "Fair" because they don't have the same sales figures. That would be preposterous. On the other hand, if a company were gaining unfair tax exemptions and stipends from the goverment because of the owners close relationship with policy-makers then their rivals would have every right to claim unequal treatment and demand a change.

If my analogy weren't clear to you, i'm simply arguing that the so called "big" clubs don't have more money by some magical accident. They worked harder than everyone else and had the foresight to penetrate different markets while their rival clubs did not. This should not be held against them. It SHOULD be that they have an advantage because they worked towards that. For example, I guarantee you that Arsenal could've won FAR more trophies in the last 7 years if they hadn't sacrificed immediate success to procure long-term stability. It is not fair then to say that because now they make more money than Fulham that they shouldn't be allowed to invest more than Fulham can. Much has been sacrificied and it has taken dozens and dozens of years of hard work for Arsenal to finally reach a point where they can have a financial advantage. No business law, monoplistic strategies, or other unfair means were used to get to said advantage. On the other hand, when a club whose output is approximately 1/5th that of Liverpool's is able to outmuscle Liverpool because of unsavoury procurance of outside finances then we have ourselves a problem. In summation, I think it is meet and right that the break-even rule be installed. For those who fear a drop in competetiveness, I point you to the Bundesliga who (barring this strange season) have been the most competetive of the big 5 leagues in Europe for the last decade. Moreover, the quality of their football has increased, along with the health of their clubs, and the attendances of their fans. Lastly, the HUGE financial windfall of the SKY Tv deal will make even the 17th spot PL team richer than 90% of European teams elsewhere. As such, there will be no inherent detriment to the attractiveness of the leaue and their ability to compete with the likes of other nations.

The End :)

@Golden, not trying to piss you off, dude. It's the truth.

@raimondo: Hardly any of the Invincibles were graduates of Arsenal's youth program -- nearly all of them were bought from abroad. Same with the Dream Team of Barcelona.

Since then, La Masia has become something truly amazing, and yes, that's half the secret to Barca's success, but I don't think it's as simple a matter as to just say: "Hey focus on academies," as a solution to the issue of money in the game. Clubs that perpetually sell their youth team products don't do so well, and it takes a fantastic first team already in place for the best prospects to get a chance to shine.

Ajax and Barca are two special exceptions, and I think it's noteworthy that both were designed by Johan Cruyff himself. 

I won't be too surprised if Roman is say no, and you guys shouldn't either. Good day to your sirs.

Its okay keep spending you guys never get anywhere in Europe with all that money anyways. You guys are doing La Liga a favor and slowly taking us out of debt while the Liga gets stronger ;)

@tdot La Liga is not getting stronger... If you look at any club financials other than Barca or Madrid you will see how every team is in huge debt. Valencia and atletico have been struggling every year with debts. The Tv rights are unfair and should be fixed.

@tdot: Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Don't do a knibis.

Don't know why England are so late to do that... In Germany they did it already.Clubs in England are more interested at buying than Germany. Or simply the Germans are silent and they don't say shit.

A lot of teams in La Liga are in debt but they still kill the English teams.. Chelsea is about to buy Falcao which will take Atletico out of debt. Valencia have sold many stars and are barely in or not in debt anymore.

How the hell do you know Chelsea will buy Falcao. Falcao himself stated he is not leaving Atletico. Plus, EPL might soon have a transfer fee cap. Finally, Valencia and Atletico aren't in debt for just 50 million or less. They are in debt for 80 million or more. Selling Falcao isn't enough.

Not only have we been in debt we started building a freaking new stadium. That's like 400M. Hence why the money made from silva villa and Mata was never used to buy a lot of talent. I hope our financial structure works and this new stadium will generate a lot more income in 2014.