A year has gone by since Lega Serie B introduced the salary cap in Italian football’s second league. But its president, Andrea Abodi, still likes to call it with the Italian name “tetto salariale” as he rightly doesn’t want the reader to mistake the regulation with the more common one adopted by American professional leagues. In fact, differences between the two are numerous, with the approach based on single club balances rather than the total league’s revenue standing out the most.

Despite the mechanism still needs perfecting, the first results are nonetheless visible: taking into consideration the fifteen teams that have participated in last year’s tournament and that are still doing so this year, the aggregate remuneration has dropped by 13%. These fifteen clubs pay their players’ wages an average total of 5.5 million euros, whilst last year’s same statistic was just under 6.5 million. Such results represent a starting point for a more sustainable league: “The salary cap is now a reality – said Abodi – and will produce more visible effects when onerous contracts will expire, especially those of clubs demoted from Serie A to serie B. When a new generation of contracts will be signed the cap effects will be observable to a greater extent”.

During next season the salary cap will be further strengthened. The ratio between output value and the aggregate salaries, which currently cannot go beyond 60% of the club’s revenues, will be lowered to 55%, as Abodi stated: “We must not only improve the explicit effects of this instrument, but also the relationship with players and agents. Obviously the salary cap is in action and the 60% ratio must be respected. We studied it as a disincentive for single contracts that must also take the general picture into consideration. An individual salary cap of 150 thousand euros per player will be introduced only when, and if, the 60% (55 from next season) benchmark will be breached.

Regardless of this new directive, two historical clubs like Siena and Padova were left with no option but to declare bankruptcy at the end of last year: “Even though the causes differ, two clubs were forced two leave our Campionato at the end of last season. The salary cap isn’t the only tool adopted; it must be combined to the rosters’ regulation, which is now taking a more definite shape”, concluded the Lega Serie B president, referring to the other innovation introduced during the former season, i.e. the restraint considering a maximum of eighteen over-21 players per squad, in the attempt of granting young players more time on the field.

Translation by Stefano Garini