IT MIGHT sound like sour grapes to some before their match at Stamford Bridge today, but while Dave Whelan says that he does not begrudge Chelsea their success, the outspoken Wigan Athletic chairman believes that Roman Abramovich’s millions will destroy top-flight football in England if a salary cap is not introduced soon.

Whelan said the FA Premier League must follow the route taken by American football officials in the United States and the RFL by putting a ceiling on players’ wages to safeguard the future of the country’s elite competition.

Manchester United dominated the Premiership during the 1990s, but Whelan believes Chelsea’s spending power and ability to pay exorbitant sums on players’ wages is unrivalled and that the league will be “finished” if the West London club continue to blow away their closest rivals.

High ticket prices and saturated television coverage have been put forward as causes for a slump in attendances this season, but Whelan, who called for a salary cap long before Wigan were promoted to the Barclays Premiership and who welcomed one in rugby league despite the success of his Wigan Warriors team, is convinced that Chelsea’s financial dominance poses the greatest threat.

Whelan wants to see the introduction of an annual salary cap of about £25 million a club. For a 25-man squad, that would equate to an average weekly wage of a little less than £20,000 a player. Chelsea’s present annual players’ wage bill is about £120 million, while Wigan’s is a little more than £10 million.

“We should have a salary limit, even if it is £25 million, and some clubs can’t even afford to pay that,” Whelan said. “If Chelsea win the league six or eight times in a row, the competition is finished. Wigan won the [rugby league] Challenge Cup eight times in a row and it ruined the game for a while because people more or less knew they were going to win it before [the competition] started.

“Winning it so often is damaging for the game. If Chelsea’s wage bill carries on getting bigger, even Manchester United, supposedly the richest club in the world, won’t be able to get anywhere near it.”

Whelan believes the days of making money out of football are “long gone” and says that the chairmen of most Premiership clubs in the lower half of the table support his calls for a salary cap.

The resistance, Whelan reasons, comes from the chairmen of the bigger clubs, who believe a salary cap would undermine their ability to compete in Europe, but the JJB Sports founder thinks the FA Premier League should serve as a trail-blazer and is convinced many of the European leagues would follow suit.

“When you see how deep in debt Real Madrid are, I think teams like that would follow our lead eventually,” he said. “Even if the top clubs say they cannot compete in Europe with a salary limit, it is still worth trying.”

Whelan believes there may be problems regulating a salary cap, but that, given time, it would work. “It does take time,” he said. “Rugby league has had a salary cap for eight years, and only in the past two has there been the sort of transparency in sticking to it that you would want.

“It has succeeded in bringing the clubs together. Leeds, Bradford, Wigan and St Helens will always contend for the honours, but it allowed Warrington, Hull, Huddersfield and London to be competitive.”

Whelan clearly believes in prosperity for all, and as if to underline his philanthropy, the Wigan chairman has said he will be giving all Blackburn Rovers supporters who visit the JJB Stadium for the Premiership game on New Year’s Eve a “free pie” as a thank you to the club he represented as a young professional in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

GETTING A TASTE OF ABRAMOVICH

LITTLE is known about Roman Abramovich, but Dave Whelan, the Wigan Athletic chairman, shed some light on the apparent eating habits of the Chelsea owner yesterday.

“He didn’t try the Wigan pies [when Chelsea played at the JJB Stadium this season],” Whelan said. “Apparently, he doesn’t eat or drink anything at any away match. He was just happy to watch the game.

“I don’t know if he doesn’t trust us, but there must be a reason because the hospitality in this league is first-class. I thought he was a very kind and courteous gentleman. He doesn’t speak much English, but if you speak slowly he understands it quite well. He seems to be a genuine guy who loves his football. I don’t know if it started out that way, but I do think he is in love with football and with Chelsea.”