Russian football needs a salary cap to stop government money being wasted on highly-paid stars, a candidate for the presidency of the Russian F.A. said Tuesday.
Salary caps are often features of franchise-based leagues such as basketball’s NBA or the U.S.-based MLS football league, and no major European league has one.
Limiting salaries would help Russian clubs meet UEFA spending rules, according to Russian Football Union presidential candidate Igor Lebedev, deputy speaker of the Russian parliament and a member of the far-right Liberal Democratic Party of Russia.
“This measure would help Russian clubs to comply with the demands introduced by UEFA Financial Fair-Play and stop irrational expenditure of resources that clubs receive from state companies or the federal budget,” Lebedev said in a statement on the LDPR website.
“It will be possible to control [clubs’] expenditure on salaries, which will not be supposed to exceed a certain percentage of the total budget.”
Eight of the 16 clubs in the Russian Premier League are owned by regional governments, while three more, including champions Zenit St. Petersburg, are owned by companies majority-owned by the federal government.
Just three are in private hands, while the ownership of CSKA Moscow is not public knowledge.
As part of a crackdown on football hooliganism, Lebedev also said he would seek, if elected, to implement British policies that prevent proven hooligans from leaving the country during major tournaments.
The other candidates are Russian Premier League head Sergei Pryadkin, Russian Olympic Committee executive director Nikolai Tolstykh, Soviet international Evgeny Lovchev and football officials Alisher Aminov, Valery Beletsky and Vladimir Tumaev.
