Getting Premier League footballers to take a pay-cut right now, ought not to be a complicated business. It’s all well and good pointing and screaming at wealthy owners, but if players don’t take a meaningful cut, then they are damaging the future prospects of the club. This, incidentally, while they are sat at home playing Space Invaders.
David Ornstein this morning writes on the subject and surprise, surprise, the proposed COVID-19 salary discussions have revealed underlying grievances in the Tottenham squad.
Some Spurs players feel as if a wage cut when they had already been undervalued in the first place – simply isn’t on. Then, there are the pre-tax profits that eclipsed all others in the Premier League.
Levy’s comment about players and coaches doing their bit for the football ecosystem should have literally gone without saying. Indeed, in an ideal world, it’s a remark that should have stayed in-house.
Arguably, the net result has been much foot-dragging, and the setting up of the #PlayersTogether initiative which cynics might say is a device to allow the players to say, ‘well, we’re already doing our bit’.
The next payday at Spurs is on April 30th, in 5 days’ time.
I don’t really care what the rich do with their gold in normal circumstances… No regular prem club will go bust, I’m with roy keane and the players really…… But this country is struggling thanks to the tories being in power so long.. The sick people and people on benefits have been cut 30 percent in the last ten years. Yet prices and taxes constantly raised.. Before the pandemic homelessness and poverty was on the rise. Families going to food bins….. Now with covid 19 I would expect any rich person to do their bit. They can save lives with their money. charity is needed in these testing times…. The economy of football and enic will be fine… The old and sick and the poor and the dying is just horrendous… Everybody should help if they can, not just footballers.. If they were all out doing food deliveries for the elderly then that would be something… Football will be one of the first businesses to rise again fast. They are all minted in the prem.
How many players truly care for the club? We all know the obligatory kissing of the badge means little. Fans who engage with the players in this, as a sign of loyalty, are as deluded as Trump thinking injecting domestic will work a treat. Roy Keane is right about the business side of things, but he’s missing the point. The players at Tottenham may not have been paid market rate but earning £50k a week for the last 5 years is still £6.5m after tax. Norwich losing upto £35m is no laughing matter and clubs, especially in the lower leagues could be like Bury in a few months time. No player in the EPL will be left wondering how to feed his family, even with a 25% wage deferral (Villa). The bubble these guys live in could do with bursting because it makes me sick. It isn’t a Spurs problem, even Arsenal’s very own Marty Feldman doesn’t want to take a hit on his supposed £310k a week wages.
I suppose it comes down to how much good will Levy has built up with the players. Do they feel they have been fairly treated for twice finishing runners up and achieving Champions League qualification year after year. I’d say they don’t feel they owe Daniel anything, quite the reverse in fact. As Roy Keane has said when the boot is on the other foot and they want rid of you, they tell you that it’s just business.
I’d guess Toby and Rose are the ones most likely to still be bristling about having been historically underpaid. For a long time both were on a fraction of lesser players elsewhere.
But it’s not just signature tight-arsedry that has come back to bite. The opposite is also true. The club is now also being stung for the decisions to lavish grotesquely over-iinflated salaries on select individuals, most glaringly the coach, the record signing, and sissy. Then there is the unaccountable amount of money it was considered appropriate to lavish on a new stadium.
Those chickens are now roosting on the little accountant’s lawn and as ever it is the fans who will suffer for it.