French league pushes back against criticism: 'It's not a salary cap' / News - Basketnews.com

The French Basketball League said that the decision was made to improve the league's consistency and prevent team from having overly inflated budgets.

Credit: LNB Credit LNB

The French Basketball League's (LNB) decision to introduce a luxury tax after teams reach a certain point in players' salaries received backlash both from the players and the organizations, AS Monaco in particular.

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The Monegasque team's GM Oleksiy Yefimov questioned the decision, claiming that it's not going to improve the league's image and decrease the clubs' chances of achieving greater success in European competitions.

After receiving criticism, the league has responded.

"It is not a question of thwarting the development of Monaco. We don't want to restrict the fact that there are significant payrolls, but we want it to be consistent with a model that is not solely based on exceptional results or sponsorship," said Philippe Ausseur, the president of the league's management control, via L'Equipe. " It is a regulatory measure to prevent us from having overly inflationary models that lead to uncontrollable deficits."

"It's not a salary cap as we hear in other professional sports. There is no notion of a player's remuneration limit or payroll," LNB director general Fabrice Jouhaud told L'Equipe. "The objective is certainly not to hinder the development of clubs but to avoid imbalances which could become irreversible and harmful to the Championship."

The league will introduce a tax that clubs will have to pay when they reach a certain percentage of players' salaries compared to the organization's overall budget. L'Equipe argues that the number will reach at least 40%, which only Monaco are currently devoting a higher amount of the total budget to their players' salaries.

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