Former Tottenham boss Harry Redknapp has urged the players to get together and react to the controversy over the pay cuts for the non-playing staff.
In an official club statement on Tuesday, chairman Daniel Levy confirmed that Spurs were to use the furlough scheme introduced by the government amid the coronavirus crisis.
That will see the government pay 80 percent of wages for workers earning up to £2,500 per month, while the employer has the option to pay the remaining 20 percent.
However, the statement confirmed that non-playing staff would be taking a 20 percent pay cut, and that earned Tottenham a major backlash with Newcastle United also using the scheme.
Redknapp expressed his shock at the club deciding to go down that road in the first place but has called on the players to do the right thing and take a reduction themselves in order to ensure the non-playing staff are looked after.
“I can’t believe it. Surely players should be taking a cut. This isn’t for big clubs like Tottenham,” he is quoted as saying by The Sun. “I thought the Government were going to pay ordinary people who are struggling and help small businesses who are struggling.
“But you are talking here about a club where their players earn £10-12million a year. Tottenham are owned by Joe Lewis, one of the richest men in the world, and his club are cutting the wages of all their non-football staff by 20 percent. I can’t believe it.
“I know their minds and they don’t want to be going it alone but they will do it if all their team-mates do it. They can all afford to hand over ten per cent and I’d like to see the captain of every Premier League club call a meeting and say, ‘Come on, guys, we are all in it together, let’s donate to help our staff’.
“They can all have a meeting by phone. They all know the importance of helping out the staff and they will want to help — they know there are a lot of people struggling.”
It may not be as simple as that though, with the Mail reporting that agents and the PFA are advising against accepting any cuts or deferrals until after a crucial meeting on Friday.
The hope will be that those discussions result in a fair outcome that protects the more vulnerable staff members at the clubs in question, but Redknapp is evidently stunned that Spurs have even gone down this road in the first place.
Interesting to see does Levy up his pay cut to thirty per cent.
I totally agree. I couldn’t see Levy handing back the 30% to the non playing staff who need it. Which is why there is talk of ‘charitable’ donations to the NHS and other bodies that need it. Andros isn’t the only suspicious player and rightly so.
Read Andros Townshend’s article in the Guardian about the players taking a pay cut, there need to be guarantees that some of the money goes to the non playing staff and not straight into the pockets of millionaire chairmen and billionaire owners.
Players who earn more in a week than most earn in a year are the ones who have to come out irrespective of upsetting the PFA or their agents and take the hit. Honestly though, how many are bright enough to do this on their own accord? Kane, the captain of England definitely is. Granted, he’s no Tony Galvin! The players would get more respect from the fans instead of waiting to be pushed. Alot of these players don’t need to earn a penny more in their lives, as opposed to PFA members in League 2 and the National (North and South too) who might be on £500 a week if that (I know some players will be earning more in these leagues), but this is where being a member of union means something, about being in it together. However, does the reserve left back at Wrexham class himself in the same bracket as Raheem Sterling?