Finger Pointing

So Bill Buford, in the “Sunderland” chapter.  I just love the short hand reference, keeps the unwashed out.   Fine elitist and fatuous so I’ll begin again.  In Bill Buford’s illuminating paen to English football and hooliganism, there is a chapter devoted to Buford’s interaction with one Superintendent R. McAllister.  In short the police official queries said American one the crowd conditions at U.S. sporting events where upwards of 90,000 fans are crammed into an enclosed space for upwards of three hours with no fatalities due to crowd violence, nor congestion.  Now Buford is not trying to claim the Taylor report as his own, rather that crowd control at U.S. events may have been slightly ahead of its English counterparts. 

Fast forward to today and reports are coming out of England’s Championship division of a call for a salary cap.  For anyone familar with Soccerati, a call for a salary cap was put forth some months ago.  In a trickle down gestalt of footballing economics, this credit crunch is affecting every aspect of the world economy and sport leagues are not immune.  Numerous chairmen and officials of Championship side teams are concerned that current and near future revenue streams will not keep pace with the transfer standards set in past years.  In other words the players Southampton could afford say three or two years ago may no longer be realilstic come this January or summer.  Already major clubs such as Man Ure and Chelsea have given signs that they will not pursue large purchases when the transfer window opens.  So maybe a salary cap, something U.S. leagues have all to some degree instituted, is the necessary tonic for current economic conditions.  Not as a short term panacea, but as built in mechanism to protect the leagues, from EPL to conference, from rampant fiscal meltdown.