Patriots owner Robert Kraft says he’d be interested in buying an English soccer team, but there’s one thing holding him back, and it’s the one thing that’s largely credited for maintaining the NFL’s competitive balance and cost certainty: A salary cap.
Kraft owns the New England Revolution of Major League Soccer and has an interest in expanding his sports business operations abroad, but he’s not going to go about that by buying into the English Premier League as long as that league doesn’t have a cap.
“I would only do it if there was a salary cap. It’s the same thing I said three years ago,” Kraft told CNN. “We could have bought Liverpool before the two ownership groups who preceded us and in the end I don’t want to compete in a business where people throw money at something. I want to be able to compete. The fans in Liverpool are awesome and they are expecting to win every year, and if you are competing with people who have different rules then it makes it difficult.”
Kraft suggested that the way European soccer currently works, if you want to win big you have to be willing to lose money. And he’s not willing to lose money.
“Manchester City won the championship this year and I hear they’re going to lose $156 million,” Kraft said. “I would rather give that money to charity if I had it. I want every business to stand on its own.”
The Patriots can win on the field and make Kraft a nice profit. He doesn’t want to buy into a team where that won’t be the case.