Schalke 04 wants to be the first Bundesliga club to introduce an upper salary limit. This is unnecessary, opportunistic self-restriction – and could harm the club in the long term.
FC Schalke 04 plans to cap its players’ salaries in the future and not pay any players more than 2.5 million euros. The “Süddeutsche Zeitung” reported exclusively on Sunday evening. When asked by the “Bild”, the Ruhrpott Club did not want to confirm or deny the introduction of such an upper limit. A silence that speaks volumes.
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With this step, the royal blues would become Bundesliga pioneers – the first club to respond to the public debate about a salary limit held by DFB President Fritz Keller – but they would also limit themselves massively. That would not only affect the possibilities to keep the current squad together, in which Omar Mascarell and Benjamin Stambouli collect the two pillars of the grandiose first half of the season, an estimated over four million euros per season, but also the medium-term orientation of the club.
Because Schalke would degenerate into a middle class club with a middle class budget. The miners’ smithy, Schalke’s legendary and highly acclaimed academy for young talent, may continue to produce top talents. But today, 17-year-old young professionals are pursuing a far-sighted career plan. Salaries in the amount of the circulating 2.5 million euros are not the end, but rather the second or third rung on the ladder to the top. Schalke would increasingly assume the role of a vocational school from which the financially strong competition can pick the best graduates.
Salary cap no new consideration on Schalke
Considerations on capping the gaming budget are nothing new at Schalke. Christian Heidel took up his position as Schalker Sports Director in 2016 with the wish to adjust the salary level. Should his successor Jochen Schneider now assert himself with his plan, that would surely also be a late satisfaction for the economical Mainz, who was still talking about a maximum of between three and 3.5 million euros.
Christian Heidel (left) and Leon Goretzka (right): The sports director could not convince the courted midfielder to stay at Schalke. (Source: team2 / imago images)
However, it is also part of the story that Heidel threw his basic austerity course overboard when it came to tying top performers Leon Goretzka to the S04. Heidel suddenly spoke publicly about how he had gone to the financial pain limit for the whereabouts of today’s Bayern star, even offering Goretzka a double-digit million salary. The courted player nevertheless left the club and decided – despite a financially weaker offer – for the FC Bayern challenge. This opened Pandora’s box and condemned Heidel’s salary strategy to failure. Players like Max Meyer and Alexander Nübel then played poker, brought unrest to the club and weakened them with their free transfers.
It is surprising how positive the new advance towards the upper salary limit for the Schalke appendix is. Advocates of the austerity course are happy to refer to two other clubs that are said to even benefit from such a strategy: Ajax Amsterdam and RB Leipzig. However, these references are not only unsuitable, they also testify to little specialist knowledge. Because: Ajax tipped his one million euro salary cap after four years without a championship in 2018 to bring the two ex-players (and big earners) Dusan Tadic and Daley Blind back from the Premier League back to the canal metropolis. Only the end of the self-imposed dogma enabled the 34th national championship to be achieved and the Champions League semi-final to be reached.
RB Leipzig probably introduced a salary cap of three million euros in 2016 – as a Bundesliga climber at the time. However, this should have been taken into account, reflecting the sporting successes of the Saxons, tilted or tacitly corrected upwards. With a current salary structure of between five and six million euros, the club, which is also supported by the Austrian company Red Bull, is competitive in the top ranks on the global transfer market.
The problems lie in the management team, not in the players’ salaries
So the now likely upper salary limit at Schalke is nothing more than a cheap stun grenade. A maneuver that should distract from years of mismanagement in the Gelsenkirchen leadership team in the light of the Corona crisis. Instead of restricting himself so unnecessarily and opportunistically, the supervisory board around the severely battered chairman Clemens Tönnies should rather review his past work – and ask himself how, together with the management board, over 150 million euros in transfer proceeds from the past five years alone have been so could sit senselessly in the sand.
A Schalke upper limit would also protect a little from expensive transfer flops and misunderstandings such as Nabil Bentaleb (19 million euros transfer, four million euros salary) and Sebastian Rudy (16 million euros transfer, six million euros salary), but it would also be equivalent with a waiver of spectacular new signings such as Klaas-Jan Huntelaar (received up to eight million euros on a performance-related basis) and the claim to get involved in international business every year. High performers such as the coveted Weston McKennie and Suat Serdar are likely to pull out soon.
No, the planned budget cover would not make Schalke the German Ajax. Rather, he would throw the club back years in its development and make it all the more dependent on loan players – and windy advisors. That would not even have been in the interest of a certain frugal Mainz man.
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