"If players and agents and the authorities don't realise and grasp the potential magnitude of this, and the fact that we could lose our football pyramid as it currently exists within a year from now, they will let it happen"
Tuesday 26 May 2020 18:06, UK
Huddersfield owner Phil Hodgkinson insists football must adopt a salary cap structure at domestic and European levels.
Hodgkinson's impassioned proposals come off the back of his comments warning that as many as 60 clubs face going out of business if steps are not taken to address their revenue shortfalls exacerbated by the coronavirus crisis.
His answer to the funding gap envisages a collaborative effort involving organisations at every level from FIFA and UEFA to the non-League game, to safeguard the sport.
"I do believe we absolutely need to move very quickly to salary caps, and that includes the Premier League, and that includes European leagues because FIFA and UEFA need to get involved at that level to make sure that English clubs that are in Europe aren't penalised unfairly," Hodgkinson told Sky Sports News.
"You would look at non-League clubs who now need clubs to get through, you would look at a similar thing in League Two and League One.
"When you get into the Championship, you would need more governance around it.
"You can't just be handing this out and you might be looking at a mixture of grants and loans to help Championship clubs out but there would be some strict governance around this.
"Those clubs would have to show that, within a 12-month period, they would get to a point that they were within a salary cup otherwise they have got to pay it back.
"It really does need to happen. The disparity between League One and the Championship is as wide as between the Championship and the Premier League."
Such is the seriousness of the current crisis, Hodgkinson believes the conversation and narrative needs to focus on the intermediate and long-term and not just about the remainder of this campaign.
He also acknowledges that clubs are cottoning on to the fact that they are likely going to play a portion of next season at least without fans.
But there are more pertinent questions as to whether this is much more than a cashflow crisis for some clubs who rely on a combination of broadcast deals and gate receipts.
For Hodgkinson, the football pyramid is in danger of collapse if those at all levels of the game do not provide answers and he has called on the PFA to lead by example regarding players' contracts.
"They (the PFA) need to understand that their job is to look after their players," Hodgkinson said.
"If this continues, the way to look after their players will be either to get them to agree to cuts at every level or, if they don't want their players to agree to cuts because they have got contracts and they are legally binding, then they need to look at putting some money into the pot from their funds.
"We need to discuss this, we need to look at what's potentially going to happen and put something in place.
"In circumstances like this, this is a once in several lifetimes situation, what we need to do is assume the worst, prepare for the worst and, if the worst doesn't happen, we were prepared for it anyway.
"If players and agents and the authorities don't realise and grasp the potential magnitude of this, and the fact that we could lose our football pyramid as it currently exists within a year from now, they will let it happen.
"That's not a legacy that I would imagine anybody wants to follow them."
