In the Premier League, there is a lesser-known tradition that every three months, the Premier League organizes a Premier League chairman's summit, where the owners of 20 Premier League teams are either chairmen or top managers to negotiate and negotiate some Premier League matters.

For more than a decade, the Premier League chairman's summit has been held at the Landmark Hotel in the north-east of London's Hyde Park, because the name of this five-star luxury hotel is very interesting in English, called Milestone.

But this time, the organizer of the chairman's summit, Richard? Scudmore informed everyone in the call that the venue of the summit had changed for the first time, from the original Landmark Hotel to the Zhenhua Hotel in the Olympic Park, which is one of the most famous top hotels in London in the past six months.

And unlike the past on the eighth floor of the Landmark Hotel, this meeting was arranged in a private meeting hall on the tenth floor, which also represents a good meaning, that is, it is better than one floor, and the Landmark Hotel is only the eighth floor in total, but the Zhenhua Building is significantly higher and more top-notch.

Zhenhua Building and Tottenham Hotspur's Stratford Stadium are separated by the data cloud of Leaf Technology, and the scenery here is indeed quite charming, especially when you take the elevator of the skyscraper, climb to the top of the Zhenhua Building, look at the wind turbine at your feet, and overlook the whole of London, that feeling will make you feel more energetic than ever.

Richard? Scudmore arrived early to prepare, he was a regular visitor to the hotel, and although he organised what he called the Premier League roundtable, he rarely spoke unless he felt the need to remind the owners or chairmen of the clubs.

It is customary to have a chairman's summit at the beginning of the season, because every season, there will always be three relegation from the 20 Premier League teams, so at the beginning of each season, the owners and chairmen of the three promoted teams in the Premier League can use the summit to get to know other people and have some exchanges by the way.

The first chairman's summit of the new season was obviously different, as Ye Qiu would attend it in person.

In the past, Tottenham Hotspur's chairmanship summit was chaired by club CEO Peter Hotspur? Kenyon agent, this has become the consensus of the industry, but this time Ye Qiu said that he wanted to attend this meeting in person, not only him, Peter? Kenyon will also accompany Ye Qiu to attend, which shows the importance that Tottenham Hotspur attaches to this meeting.

It's not just them, Manchester United in addition to arranging David? In addition to Gil's participation in the meeting, the Glazer family also arranged for a representative of the family members to attend, as well as Chelsea's Roman Abramovich, West Ham United's Reponolev and others will also attend in person, and everyone is well aware of the unusual nature of this meeting.

Scudmore was able to guess a few, presumably related to the salary limits previously proposed by Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal.

Sometimes when I think about it, things in this world are really weird.

Skudmore has been the CEO of the Premier League since 99 years and has participated in the Premier League President's Summit for more than ten years. Barry, who was the first chairman of the Premier League Committee, is a veteran and has the most weight.

And then Manchester United, whether it's Edwards, Peter? Kenyon or David? Gil, they are the focus of the meeting, which also reflects the weight of Manchester United in the Premier League; Arsenal's former duo David West? Dunn, who is also a major player in the Premier League, has now gradually withdrawn from the Premier League winners.

And two are former Chelsea boss Ken? Bates and Leeds United's chairman, Rizdale, both of whom are ambitious homegrown owners, especially Ken? Bates, full of vulgarity, arrogance.

However, feng shui takes turns, and the situation in the Premier League has changed dramatically in the past few years.

Tottenham Hotspur has emerged as the most powerful and influential team in the Premier League, but Peter? Kenyon is still the same as when he was at Manchester United, polite, full of gentlemanly demeanor, never coming out of trouble, but he is very shrewd in his heart.

Manchester City have also become one of the best teams in the Premier League in the past two or three seasons, and Mubarak has represented the team at the chairman's summit every time, but he has also been in a relationship with professional manager Peter? Kenyon believes in the same strategy and is not in the limelight, but as long as it is in City's interest, they will fight for it.

There are also the likes of Newcastle, West Ham United and Liverpool, many of whom are also professional managers, which makes the Premier League chairman's summit more rigorous and formal.

After all, less Ken? Bates, a smug and vulgar man, has more rational and calm managers, everyone sits together, discusses with each other, studies each other, and although they will quarrel, there is rarely that kind of shrewd scolding street-style scene.

But it is precisely because of the moderation and self-preservation attitude of emerging teams such as Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City that the chairman's summit loses a very important value, that is, decision-making, because the Premier League began to lack leaders.

Looking at several active club owners in the past, the three giants represented by Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal, plus Ken? The owners of the Middle and Lower Tier teams, such as Bates, Rieddale and Newcastle's Shepard, are at loggerheads, but in fact they are leaders of their respective interest groups.

In other words, as long as any decision is made with their consent and the opinions of these people are unified, it is basically counted.

But now it's different, so many decision-makers, so many bosses, so many important teams, so that the entire Premier League chairman's summit has almost no so-called leaders, many times this kind of summit is more like a sorority, everyone gets together to drink, talk, and when the time comes, they leave.

Just like Tottenham Hotspur, Scudmore has mentioned to Ye Qiu more than once that he and his Tottenham Hotspur should play a more important leading role in the Premier League, because they are now the number one team in the Premier League, and it can even be said that they are not lost to Manchester United's giants, and more importantly, almost everyone is obedient to Ye Qiu.

But Tottenham Hotspur has always maintained a restraint, to put it mildly, this is called no desire for power, to put it badly, they don't intend to take responsibility, they don't want to be this bad guy, especially when it comes to some controversial decisions, Tottenham Hotspur wants to be a good guy.

For example, salary limit, is that a good thing? I believe that even among the fans, I am afraid that it is a mixed reputation, and in all Premier League teams, it is also mixed, because everything has two sides, there is a good side, and there is a bad side, so every time the salary limit is raised, Manchester United, Chelsea and other teams are the most carnival, but Manchester City, Newcastle, West Ham United and other teams are the most unhappy, and the two sides must be noisy.

Tottenham Hotspur played a neutral role, not noisy, not noisy, not supportive, but not against, because they themselves insisted on a salary limit, whether there was a salary limit clause or not, it was the same for them, so they didn't care.

Every time Skudmore was half angry, he and Peter? Kenyon has a good relationship and is also friends with Ye Qiu, but there is no way to take Tottenham Hotspur every time.

But this time, Ye Qiu offered to participate in the chairman's summit, and Skudmore had a good premonition.

Perhaps this will be a turning point, because as the CEO of the Premier League, he knows very, very well that the current Premier League is undoubtedly in its prime, and it will develop rapidly in the next few years, but under the heyday, there is an extremely deadly potential crisis, and if it is not handled well, the Premier League will follow in the footsteps of the Bundesliga in 2001.

This is what he, as the CEO of the Premier League, does not want to see, and I believe that all Premier League club owners do not want to see.

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As the agreed meeting time approached, the owners of various clubs arrived at the venue one after another.

Some of the bosses came alone, some were with the actual managers of the club, but all of them were suits and leather shoes, well-dressed gentlemen, and after entering the venue, they all found the location of their teams according to the circular conference table and the alphabetical order of each club, the boss sat next to the round table, and the assistant was in the back row.

Scudmore greets every club owner who comes to the venue, and he has a lot of dealings with these people on a daily basis, so as the CEO of the Premier League, he wouldn't be able to do it for that long if he didn't have the ability to dance with long sleeves.

But the most important person has never appeared.

Ye Qiu had actually come to the Zhenhua Hotel a long time ago, but David? Jill gave him a phone call beforehand, and the two parties made an appointment to meet beforehand, so he and Peter? When Kenyon arrived at the hotel, he went straight to his private room first.

Manchester United and Chelsea are the most vocal supporters of the salary cap clause, the other being Arsenal, but to be honest, this team doesn't have much weight in the Premier League these days, and many people are even reluctant to deal with them because the 76-year-old Hillwood is still relying on the old and selling the old.

If Arsenal was still such a strong top giant, many people might tolerate it, but now Arsenal has missed the Champions League for many years, and the team is also seriously lacking competitiveness, which makes Arsenal's status in the Premier League also declining, and its voice in the chairman's summit has also been seriously weakened, and no one buys it.

David? Representatives of the Gill and Glazer families wanted to talk to Ye Qiu about the salary limit, they thought that they could not allow the salary to expand uncontrollably, and they proposed to limit the maximum salary, learn from the NBA's salary cap system, and set a ceiling on the salary of all players, and no team could exceed this ceiling.

Or adopt a fixed pattern to limit the amount of salary increases, such as not exceeding a few percent per year.

Their rhetoric is also very reasonable, because if the current trend continues, next season, after the implementation of the new broadcast contract, the player's salary will usher in another wave of increases, if the Premier League's maximum salary reaches 350,000 pounds a week, or even 400,000 pounds, it will be a disaster for all Premier League teams.

"Now the Premier League's maximum salary is £250,000 a week, which forces you Tottenham Hotspur to raise your salary to £150,000, and if it really rises to £350,000 and £400,000, then you have to at least double it."

David? Jill's words were very reasonable, and Ye Qiu couldn't refute them, because it was the truth.

If the maximum salary outside reaches 400,000 pounds, then Tottenham Hotspur will have to at least give Messi and Ribery and others a weekly salary of 300,000 pounds, which means that the team's current salary expenditure will be doubled compared to now, which is an absolute disaster for Tottenham Hotspur.

Some people may say that Tottenham Hotspur is like this, so why don't other teams want to limit their salaries?

The reason is very simple, when the salary is limited, the big teams are more attractive in the same salary structure, once the salary is limited, Manchester City, Newcastle, West Ham United, and even if one day in the future, other big tycoons buy some Premier League teams, want to spend money to bring in superstars, improve the strength of the team in a short period of time, it will be difficult to do.

Because your top salary is restricted, the same high salary, top stars will definitely choose giants, not your second-rate team, so once the salary structure is capped, it will mean that the class between the entire Premier League giants and the middle and lower teams will be solidified, and it will be difficult to make changes in a short period of time.

So, don't really think that Manchester United and Chelsea's proposal for salary caps is just a blind financial consideration, in fact, they are also using salary caps to set up some obstacles to ensure that Manchester United and Chelsea's long-term status as giants and consolidation.

Of course, according to the news Ye Qiu got, Manchester United is indeed miserable, because in the past few years, the team's income has increased significantly on the surface, but the crux of the problem is that the part they have promoted has basically been transferred to the pockets of players and agents, so the interest on the Glazer family's debt paid by the team every year has led to a loss for the team.

In this case, the value of Manchester United is undoubtedly being weakened step by step, once unable to get out of the current predicament, the team is in debt to pay interest, resulting in a gradual increase in debt, and the interest is also rising, if the player's salary is raised, then Manchester United will undoubtedly face a debt crisis, or even bankruptcy.

Many people admire the NBA's salary cap, but few people have heard of the saying that the NBA has always had two battlefields, one is the open battle between teams on the court, and the other is the dark war between players and owners.

And in 2011, a very important reason for the NBA shutdown was labor disputes, which was an extreme situation created by the salary cap.

Ye Qiu sent David away? After Jill and the representatives of the Glazer family, the whole person sighed deeply, leaned back on the soft sofa, tilted his head, and looked at the ceiling, "It's because of these things that I don't like to get involved!" ”

When he spoke, Ye Qiu could hardly hide the depression in his heart, this kind of thing was too complicated, especially when it came to interests.

Predictably, if you support David? The salary cap proposal of Gill and others is good for the Premier League on the surface, but it is actually a kind of chronic suicide, because under the restrictions of the salary cap, the strength of the team is seriously limited, and the middle and lower teams lose their vitality, and it will be difficult to appear Manchester City, Newcastle, West Ham United and other teams, and it will be difficult to appear Swansea, Southampton and other stunning dark horses.

If you don't limit your salary, the Premier League is also committing suicide slowly, because you must clearly know that Sky TV gives such a high broadcast fee, and they don't pay this huge amount of money out of their own pockets, they just pass this money on to consumers, and in the end it will cause another result, forcing more people to stay away from the Premier League.

Of course, you can say that the Premier League is the best in the UK, and everyone is used to watching the Premier League, but you must know that habits will change, especially when you don't have money in your pocket.

It's like many Premier League teams have accused fans of lack of enthusiasm and no longer like to go to the stadium to watch the game, but they have never considered why you want the fans to go to the game, why the ticket price is so high, and the fans are not willing to go to the game, it means that your ticket price has been so high that the original loyal fans are forced to leave you.

This is the case with the re-improvement of broadcasting rights, is there a day when fans not only do not go to watch the game live, but even do not even watch the game broadcast, and directly watch the BBC highlights.

On the flip side, if Sky TV doesn't raise prices dramatically because of the pressure on fans, but the broadcast fees paid to the Premier League on this side are going to rise dramatically, what is the result?

As a result, Sky TV swallowed the price difference in the middle, and once the difference reached a certain level, Sky TV would declare bankruptcy, just like the Kirsch Group, which had obtained the Bundesliga broadcast rights and the South Korea-Japan World Cup broadcast rights at the beginning of the century, declared bankruptcy.

Kirsch's bankruptcy led to a frenzied recruitment in the late nineties and early twenty-first century, and the Bundesliga, which was invincible in European football, almost fell into an extremely embarrassing situation, and finally forced the Bundesliga to take a healthy business route.

These are all forced, don't think that the Germans are so calm and rational, and have such a clever vision!

The past of the Bundesliga may be the future of the Premier League.

Therefore, it is necessary to limit the salary, but the question is, how to limit it?

It's very, very difficult to have to limit salaries, but also to prevent the Premier League from becoming a stagnant pool of uncompetitive situations, and to give the middle and lower teams, or some new investors, enough motivation and prospects.

This is also the reason why the salary limit has been shouted for so many years, but it has never been able to reach a result and consensus.

"Skudmore can't handle it either, so he wants us to step up!" Peter? Kenyon didn't speak, but he listened to all Ye Qiu and David? Jill's conversation, and he knows very well that the time has come for the Premier League to change.

No matter how long it delays, no matter how much it hesitates, the Premier League will inevitably follow the old path of the Bundesliga.

Sometimes history is like this, and if it's unfortunate that the Premier League does repeat the mistakes of the Bundesliga, there will certainly be countless people in the next few years who will laugh at the stupidity and short-sightedness of these decision-makers in the Premier League right now, but they are not in it, they don't know how hard and difficult it is for all the decision-makers to make this decision now.

The world is like this, and reforms, even the slightest ones, are enough to implicate everything.

"It's also a chance for us, isn't it?" Ye Qiu looked at Peter with a smile? Kenyon.

Mr. Manchester bald smiled, "Didn't you always plan to participate?" ”

Ye Qiu stood up from the sofa, "I know, you have always wanted to go to the FA as vice president, and I also think that we should not continue to be silent, we want to make Tottenham Hotspur the strongest giant team in the Premier League, right?" ”

The so-called strongest is not only the strongest achievement, but also the most influential and weighty.

Undoubtedly, the Premier League President's Summit is the stage that can best reflect this kind of strength. The TV station will declare bankruptcy, just as the Kirsch Group, which acquired the rights to broadcast the Bundesliga and the World Cup in South Korea and Japan at the beginning of the century, declared bankruptcy.

Kirsch's bankruptcy led to a frenzied recruitment in the late nineties and early twenty-first century, and the Bundesliga, which was invincible in European football, almost fell into an extremely embarrassing situation, and finally forced the Bundesliga to take a healthy business route.

These are all forced, don't think that the Germans are so calm and rational, and have such a clever vision!

The past of the Bundesliga may be the future of the Premier League.

Therefore, it is necessary to limit the salary, but the question is, how to limit it?

It's very, very difficult to have to limit salaries, but also to prevent the Premier League from becoming a stagnant pool of uncompetitive situations, and to give the middle and lower teams, or some new investors, enough motivation and prospects.

This is also the reason why the salary limit has been shouted for so many years, but it has never been able to reach a result and consensus.

"Skudmore can't handle it either, so he wants us to step up!" Peter? Kenyon didn't speak, but he listened to all Ye Qiu and David? Jill's conversation, and he knows very well that the time has come for the Premier League to change.

No matter how long it delays, no matter how much it hesitates, the Premier League will inevitably follow the old path of the Bundesliga.

Sometimes history is like this, and if it's unfortunate that the Premier League does repeat the mistakes of the Bundesliga, there will certainly be countless people in the next few years who will laugh at the stupidity and short-sightedness of these decision-makers in the Premier League right now, but they are not in it, they don't know how hard and difficult it is for all the decision-makers to make this decision now.

The world is like this, and reforms, even the slightest ones, are enough to implicate everything.

"It's also a chance for us, isn't it?" Ye Qiu looked at Peter with a smile? Kenyon.

Mr. Manchester bald smiled, "Didn't you always plan to participate?" ”

Ye Qiu stood up from the sofa, "I know, you have always wanted to go to the FA as vice president, and I also think that we should not continue to be silent, we want to make Tottenham Hotspur the strongest giant team in the Premier League, right?" ”

The so-called strongest is not only the strongest achievement, but also the most influential and weighty.

Undoubtedly, the Premier League President's Summit is the stage that can best reflect this kind of strength.