My testing of the rules set out in post #1 have proven very encouraging. I'm not seeing a "blanket" league table at the end of the season, which is interesting, but we have had a variety of league winners and a good churn of teams making the ECL. Brentford have made three consecutive Champions Leagues and Everton are genuine title contenders within three seasons (they almost won it but bottled the run in during May).
What's really fascinating is that the Premier League has won the Champions League twice since the rules were implemented, which I thought would be almost impossible given the "free market" continues to operate in Europe. I have implemented 6+5 in the major European leagues as well, so perhaps this just shows that the salary cap in England is bringing the EPL back into the pack rather than destroying it. Ditto continued strength in the Europa League, where Manchester United (finished 10th) have just beaten Aston Villa in the final of Season 4 Europa League.
Some interesting legacy issues:
- Out of the big six, only Liverpool and Man Utd have managed to get their "club" wage bill under the cap. This is mostly due to being able to sell ageing stars to Saudi Arabia.
- Arsenal, Chelsea, Man City and Spurs are trying, but not able to, shift high earning players. Odegaard and Rice have only played Champions League football for three seasons! This will fix when those contracts expire, but it's a 5-6 year problem to solve which may justify some additional editing (ie putting 12 month expiry dates on any EPL player on >£200k per week)
- These high wage earners are essentially stuck because (a) their wages are unaffordable and (b) the big clubs on the continent don't want to buy foreign players and breach 6+5
- Clubs aren't able to stockpile their cash savings thanks to a 90% corporation tax charge on profits, but there still significant variation in the club balances at the end of each season
- There is a race to the Passport Office for any established Premier League player who has been in England long enough to qualify for second nationality!