Bradford City chairman Geoffrey Richmond is urging Football League clubs to follow Rugby League and introduce a players' salary cap.

He believes this form of curbing players' spiralling wages is essential for the financial health of football - and maybe the survival of many clubs.

Richmond said: "It is something I have raised quite recently with the newly appointed chief executive of the Football League and he is certainly interested in it.

"Wage inflation in the Football League has been running at 35 per cent per year for the last five or six years and that cannot go on. Our players' wages have represented 50 to 60 per cent of our expenditure but are probably closer to 80 per cent at the moment.

"There are a number of other clubs where players' wages represent more than 100 per cent of their income. Football wages are the biggest items in a club, but there are lots of other things that must be provided for."

Richmond said it would be illegal to have a maximum wage because that would be against the law of the land, but what was allowed was the system introduced by the Rugby League.

From the start of this season, they had introduced a 'blueprint' where clubs were limited to spend on players' contracts no more than 50 per cent of their total projected income.

He said: "I am not suggesting that 50 per cent would be right for football. maybe 60, 65 or 70 per cent would be the right figure.

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