Arsenal’s chief executive Ivan Gazidis, the former deputy commissioner of the MLS, has said the Premier League should consider introducing a salary cap for its clubs as a way of encouraging financial stability and more even competition throughout the league.
In an interview with the Guardian, Gazidis repeatedly emphasized the virtues of Arsenal’s “self-sustaining finances” compared to the way other clubs rely on wild spending and billionaires’ munificence. Pointing out that Premier League clubs do not make profits in general, despite record income, he suggested that ballooning players’ salaries will further threaten clubs’ profitability.
Gazidis, who spent 14 years overseeing the much-regulated MLS, argued for spending restraint. “I think it is worth our while to investigate whether there are elements of the salary cap system, which they have in U.S. NFL and baseball, which would benefit soccer,” he said. “Clubs have a duty to provide more stability in our business models and some form of wage restraint is one element worth looking at. There are many different ways in which it could work.” Gazidis referred admiringly to Germany’s Bundesliga – “the only profitable league,” he said — which has tight restrictions on the debts clubs can carry, and insists they live within their means.