A salary cap could work if it was established at the level of a “top European league”, with “conferences” such as England, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, etc., but would still be extremely difficult to negotiate due to the sheer number of clubs that would want to be included and the very possible risk of an “alternative” league being set up by excluded clubs based on the current transfer and salary system, which would likely very quickly attract rich investors who want to “play” (Abramovic, Ecclestone, Mittal, Moratti, Al-Suleiman…), thus being able to attract all the stars away from this “top European league”.

3. Parity Through the Draft – Erm… How? “So Ryan Giggs, as first pick in the 1993/94 season is transferred to Woking FC, and Man U as 89th pick get… ”
A draft is only possible if you close the league. And even then, it discourages teams from training youth. If the Premier League closed promotion/relegation, turned the 1st division into a youth/feeder league, then it could be possible, but it would hardly take your “local team” to any great height. Perhaps this is a difference between the NBA and the English football system, but very, very few peoples’ local League side is in the Premier League. In the NBA a “local” team for someone living in the midwest can be several states away, and even states like Virginia (7,7M people) don’t have a team… It also doesn’t recognise the sizeable international contribution to football (the NBA might be facing problems regulating the draft if teams want more foreign players in the future). Lastly, the NBA has very few players leaving it, and even fewer players leaving it at the peak of their career. This is not a situation comparable to the Premier League, where every season there are players that are amongst the best in their club that leave for foreign clubs, and Premier League clubs buy the best players in foreign clubs. I doubt LeBron James is wondering if he should move for Maccabi Haifa or PAOK if they made a big-money offer for him, but I’m pretty sure Fabregas would take his time to think over a juicy deal by AC Milan or Bayern Munich.

4. Minority Coaches – I’d have to disagree on this one. I don’t think that more or less minority coaches would be better. What would be good is to get the best coaches out there. Most coaches of Premier League sides have spent years as a manager already, often as well as being players at a high level. Black players are very common now, but twenty years ago were not, and a relatively smaller proportion of black players went into coaching than white players. In the next twenty years, the number of minority coaches and managers will surely increase, but I don’t see how this is really something that the Premier League can “learn” from the NBA. How many of the best NBA players were black, and how many of the great players in the English league system since the same time were? This could be considered discrimination (invisible or not) against blacks, but the point is that black players have only become this common in the Premier League in the past 10-20 years, and as such few have the experience required to be a successful manager. I can’t really see how encouraging teams to employ minority coaches would do anything else than undermine the quality of the league for some needless PR. The current Lakers roster is mainly “minority”, and yet I don’t think anybody would consider that ditching Phil Jackson on the basis that he isn’t “minority” is a good idea. Why should it be any different?

6. Create Incentives for Players to Remain with Their Current Team – Again, this only works in a closed league system. For as much as Joleon Lescott might be lured by City’s cash, he was lured by Moyes from Wolves for exactly the same reason. Wolves fans can rightfully complain that when Everton rocked up and started offering him more than they could pay, there was little incentive for Lescott to stay with them, even though they were close to promotion. In a closed league, teams could be given incentives, but they’d have even more incentive to sell their players to foreign clubs, since they would still be able to offer them more lucrative contracts with better chances of winning the “top” award rather than one that would be “artificially” levelled…

7. Schedule International Games During the Off-Season – Erm… You know that the Premier League isn’t the only football league in the world, right? Spain and Italy start their leagues late to allow for the international matches before the season starts, the Brazilian, Russian and Scandinavian leagues (as well as many African leagues) play from May to December, and some American leagues play in two “halves” (February to July and September to December). Why doesn’t FIFA force all leagues to play on the same schedule? A couple of reasons :
– Outdoor stadia. When the ground is frozen, there’s not much that can be done. Same problem when the temperatures are in the high 30C in the evenings. So some leagues have to interrupt the league simply because it’s impossible to play then.
– A more world-wide game. Unlike Basketball, football is really played all around the world. The African Nations’ Cup is in January to February because that is the most convenient time given the monsoon. Playing during the Premier League off-season would restrict the ANC to being hosted by a handful of countries (SA, Egypt, Morocco) where the weather is ok.
– A more democratic international setup. International basketball competitions generally allow for teams that reach a certain level in previous competitions to forego qualifying rounds. For instance, a European team that took part in the Olympics doesn’t have to go through qualification for the Eurobasket (which determines who qualifies for the FIBA WC). This greatly reduces the number of international matches played by any team. A case can be made that many of the international games in football are “useless” (i.e. Spain against San Marino has never resulted in a San Marinese win), but it does show a different approach to the sport, where countries have to repeatedly prove their worth to take part in international competitions. For instance, if the FIBA method of qualification was used for the WC 2006, then Italy (World Cup winners) would not have qualified for the WC, since they finised outside of the top 6 places in the Euro 2004, did not win the Olympics, and would be very moderate candidates for wild-card, since they finished 9th in the Euro, were third in the Olympics, but Paraguay, Spain and Colombia wouldn’t have qualified either, despite finishing higher in either their regional tournament or the Olympics.

But yeah — I can see how that would be insanely irritating after, like, the first time.

It got VERY old, VERY fast. And it continued anyway, to the point where I think even non-footy-fans got bored…