In 2002 the leading European football clubs reacted to the increasing player salaries by signing a voluntary agreement to limit player salaries to 70% of revenues. We analyze under which conditions a voluntary salary cap agreement is self-enforcing. Based on a simple model of a league with two profit-maximizing clubs, we show that the self-enforcing character of salary caps increases with the clubs’ valuation of future profits and the importance of competitive balance. In European football leagues salary cap agreements are not likely to be self-enforcing because (1) promotion and relegation as well as limited transfer windows reduce the clubs’ discount factor and (2) competitive balance is less important in order to activate fan interest than in US Major Leagues.
Download Info
To our knowledge, this item is not available for
download. To find whether it is available, there are three
options:
1. Check below under "Related research" whether another version of this item is available online.
2. Check on the provider's web page
whether it is in fact available.
3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be
available.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by University of Zurich, Institute for Strategy and Business Economics (ISU) in its series Working Papers with number
0040.