The Chronicler of Chiswic wrote:
I was reading in 'The Times' about the sort of money that the clubs will be forking out here, and given that, even with the money coming to them from the RFU, the owners are still going to be forking out loadsamoney to keep their teams competitive, medium to long term, methinks there's big trainwreck coming.
Same stuff that's been said about the Premier League (soccer) ever since it started. And soccer clubs have gone bust. And some Union clubs probably will in the future, but, thanks to the profile, there's money sloshing about these sports, they're attractive to sponsors, etc. and so one way or another the sports do just fine - either a 'bust' club gets bailed out or it makes room for another one.
We've got the whole thing a***-about-face. We're obsessed with protecting individual clubs who frankly should be the responsibility of their owners. If you can't afford it don't spend it. As a sport we can still protect clubs with less money from getting swamped in competition terms by using very tight squad limits - Mr. Megarich only damages the sport if we let him stuff *the bench and extended squad* with overpaid players who ought to be out there in others' first teams.
By allowing the central body to get mixed up in controlling individual club finances, we diminish the profile of the sport *as a whole*, which ultimately leads to a smaller pot of money swilling around the sport (fewer good sponsors, etc) which in turn eventually hurts the very clubs we were trying to protect. The cap, for all its damage, hasn't even protected clubs from going bust.
