Premier League ponders salary cap or financial fair play as new cash looms

• New even more lucrative TV deal runs 2013-16• Richard Scudamore presents options to clubs at meeting

Richard Scudamore has had to answer questions about Premier League governance to a House of Commons select committee. Photograph: PA

The Premier League is considering the introduction of rules to control escalating player wages before the huge influx of cash from the next television deals in 2013-16. Potential rules presented to the clubs by the chief executive, Richard Scudamore, at a meeting in London on Thursday include a salary cap or a form of Uefa's financial fair play rules.

Some clubs feel strongly that the new TV deal, with £3bn already secured from the UK rights, should not be swallowed up by a new wave of pay inflation. But any rule change requires 14 of the 20 Premier League clubs to agree and it is not clear whether sufficient clubs will be in favour of strengthening financial regulations.

Manchester United and Arsenal, both of whom made profits in 2010-11, are understood to favour rules similar to Uefa's, which require clubs to move towards breaking even financially, not making losses. On Thursday Arsène Wenger supported that view, the Arsenal manager saying: "You should just get the resources you generate, that will determine the real size of the club."

However, some clubs see that as a move by the two with the greatest income to outspend everyone else. Manchester City, whose path to becoming Premier League champions has been achieved by the club's Abu Dhabi owner, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, subsidising huge losses, are thought unlikely to support new regulations, even though they have consistently said they are aiming to break even. City argue that a level of investment by an owner to bankroll losses is necessary to lift a club to success on the field and commercially.

Other clubs, including Fulham, Everton, West Bromwich Albion, Newcastle and Tottenham Hotspur, are also understood to question whether clubs need new regulations, rather than being trusted to manage their own affairs.

Despite income rising every year, pay to players has risen steadily over the past decade. In 2001-02, clubs spent £1.1bn, 62% of their income, on players' wages. In 2010-11, the most recent year for which financial figures are available, income grew to £2.5bn but players' wages amounted to £1.8bn, 70% of the clubs' turnover. Despite massive commercial growth and the Premier League's growing popularity abroad, only eight of the 20 clubs made a profit in 2010-11.

West Ham United's chairman, David Gold, is vocally in favour of introducing rules to limit wages to help clubs make a profit, as is Dave Whelan, the Wigan Athletic owner. Peter Coates, the Stoke City owner, said all clubs would be helped by having to conform to agreed rules.

"I hope this view is widely shared: we cannot have all the new money going in inflated wages and payments to agents," Coates said. "There is no need to do that; we will have the same players, they won't get better because we pay them more. It should not be beyond us to find a formula which works for us all."

Ellis Short, the owner and chairman of Sunderland, who lost £8m last year having spent 77% of the club's income in wages, is understood to favour restricting salary increases to 10% in each of the new TV deal's three years.

The clubs have agreed to work on the proposals in two separate groups of 10, then for all 20 to meet to consider the issue in detail at the end of September. The Premier League did not want to comment in detail until further work has been done; a spokesman confirmed: "There is a process under way to examine potential further financial regulation."

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Ditulis oleh: Unknown - Friday, August 31, 2012