[St Charles Owl]

For me its all about value for money over many years.  Sterling can become a star at City for the next ten years, so at just 5m a year its value for money as long as they win things with him.  Still remains to be seen if Bale provides that value at Real, but I doubt it.  RM have always paid silly money for the best players, such as Ronaldo when they bought him, but if they win the CL a few times they will consider it worth it.  Andy Carroll was a disaster of a signing, full stop!!!

Over the top fees being paid for English players is a direct consequence of the FA/Premier league (?) decision to make it compulsary to have a number of English players in the teams.  I understand why they did that but the effect has seen prices go up a lot!!

There needs to be a transfer cap and a wage cap on how much a club can buy a player for and how much they can pay them.

I agree with that but it wouldn't work in football.  Over here Ameerican Football and Basketball both have team and individual salary caps and they work very well at keeping the money down to reasonable levels but thse sports are single country sports when it comes to quality and money, football isn't.  If the Premier league brought in a salary cap or spending cap then the only thing that would  happen would be the Premier League would no longer attract the best players, other leagues that don't have one would get them instead.  FFP rules I suppose are at least attempting to control things but the Premier League is never going to restrict its teams from trying to get the best players as that could potentially impact the TV contracts, particualry abroad, and they will not jeopordise that income.

There is a wage cap on how much you can pay a player in the football league though because Notts County got into trouble about 6 years ago when they paid Schmeichel something like £15,000 - £20,000 for playing L2.

I wasn't aware of that, never seen anything about it.  Of course that is a truly stupid decision by them anyway!!