Leigh Pomlett: League Two salary cap would help Walsall
Chairman Leigh Pomlett believes Walsall would benefit from a more level playing field if a salary cap is imposed in League Two next season.
Pomlett is expecting some form of cap on both squad size and salary to be in place as clubs try to recover from the severe financial hit caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
He hopes one outcome of the crisis will be an end to the “stupidity” of clubs spending beyond their means.
Pomlett, who also revealed the Saddlers are now working on the assumption the 2020/21 season will begin on September 12, told BBC Radio WM: “I would also expect by next season that squad sizes and squad salaries would be capped, not individual salaries but the amount a club can spend on salaries will be capped.
“It is a different world. It is a more uncertain world, certainly. It stops people being stupid and it stops people putting clubs at risk by spending money they haven’t got and it makes it a more level playing field.
“We have this wonderful experience potentially of the best manager who can get the best out of a squad which is valued pretty much the same across League Two getting promoted, not the club that throws the most money at it to get promoted and then fails to do so.
“I think out of this chaos the football world comes to its senses we will have a better future. I am not going to miss the opportunity for Walsall to take advantage of that and I have been pretty vocal about it at the EFL sessions.”
The 2019-20 League Two season was formally curtailed earlier this week and Pomlett says the September 12 restart date is a “working assumption”. The Saddlers have budgeted for not playing any football until October.
Pomlett expects the club to add between five and seven players to Darrell Clarke’s squad ahead of football’s resumption.
He added: “We have 18 professionals already for next year, with the lads coming through from the academy.
“Darrell wants a squad bigger than that but under the new norms of football squads will not be 30-strong going forward. They will be more in the region of 23 to 25 in League Two.
“We are about five to seven players shy of that at the moment.”
