Should the players take a wage cut?

[NottsClaret]

Why the obsession with footballers earnings? Is it just because they're on the telly?

I read yesterday the top 350 footballers earn £2.8bn between them. Crazy.. But the top 350 bankers in the UK earn nearly £8bn. Are we talking about them? Or the hedge fund managers? Or the offshore account billionaires?

You have a chance to go after these people every 5 years, but choose not to. Now things go tits up, let's go after working class lads who've briefly made it big rather than the vast established wealth. Read up on what Marcus Rashford is doing. For every Grealish, there'll be ten of him doing the right thing. Meanwhile Branson is sat on his island asking for bailouts from the taxpayer, not long since he sued the NHS.

[Blackrod]

Branson shouldn’t be getting any bailouts whatsoever.

[ChorltonCharlie]

When it comes to people demanding wage cuts for footballers that are either voluntary or forced, I have to question their intelligence or motives.

First of all there's the furloughing of staff. The whole point of this with the government 80% subsidy is to help businesses who would go to the wall without it and to keep people in jobs. Some football clubs are clearly using this in an unethical way. So let's point the finger here at the owners of the clubs that are billionaires. Spurs, Newcastle and to some degree Bournemouth fit into this. The government needs to do something about it and make it so that you can't use the scheme whilst still paying other employees many times over the threshold for the furlough scheme. Those three clubs could in theory all continue to pay all staff.

Norwich are a slightly different case as their club would be in much more danger if income continues to be lost and they weren't able to make savings. Even so though they will have players being paid £10k, £20k a week who aren't taking any kind of cut. It again comes down to the owners though. Before even beginning to furlough staff on £20k, £30k a year, etc they should be looking first making some savings with the player.

Even so, footballers and clubs are still easy targets. The media doesn't help because there's this bitterness about working class people earning millions. Rags like the Sun and The Mail have developed the publics perception of footballers as overpaid spoilt brats. There are the ethical question marks about behaviour of clubs, but that's nothing to do with footballers being seen as charitable solutions to others problems. Players should take cuts where their clubs genuinely cannot afford to pay them, but that has nothing to do with slashing wages to make charitable contributions elsewhere when other areas of society aren't shamed in this way. There's over 50 billionaires in this country and some of these people have been quick to use the furlough scheme for their companies, including the likes of Mike Ashley and Joe Lewis of Newcastle and Spurs. Then there's loads of other people who earn in excess of footballers in this country.

[claretonthecoast1882]

McLaren F1 team have also used this scheme to not have to pay staff wages yet don't seem to be getting anywhere near the level of criticism.

[Chester Perry]

It is still not clear what people are talking about here - same with much of the media - the language employed needs to be precise

are you talking cuts - i.e. a permanent loss of income

or

deferrals - i.e. temporary reduction in income with the balance to be repaid at a later date

contractually and legally these are massive differences

the things the PFA have got right:
- they want to ensure that cuts are out of the question;
- deferrals should not be used by the clubs to fund transfer spending;
- FFP should not be loosened to accommodate bad financial management by clubs

[Burnley1989]

When it comes to people demanding wage cuts for footballers that are either voluntary or forced, I have to question their intelligence or motives.

First of all there's the furloughing of staff. The whole point of this with the government 80% subsidy is to help businesses who would go to the wall without it and to keep people in jobs. Some football clubs are clearly using this in an unethical way. So let's point the finger here at the owners of the clubs that are billionaires. Spurs, Newcastle and to some degree Bournemouth fit into this. The government needs to do something about it and make it so that you can't use the scheme whilst still paying other employees many times over the threshold for the furlough scheme. Those three clubs could in theory all continue to pay all staff.

Norwich are a slightly different case as their club would be in much more danger if income continues to be lost and they weren't able to make savings. Even so though they will have players being paid £10k, £20k a week who aren't taking any kind of cut. It again comes down to the owners though. Before even beginning to furlough staff on £20k, £30k a year, etc they should be looking first making some savings with the player.

Even so, footballers and clubs are still easy targets. The media doesn't help because there's this bitterness about working class people earning millions. Rags like the Sun and The Mail have developed the publics perception of footballers as overpaid spoilt brats. There are the ethical question marks about behaviour of clubs, but that's nothing to do with footballers being seen as charitable solutions to others problems. Players should take cuts where their clubs genuinely cannot afford to pay them, but that has nothing to do with slashing wages to make charitable contributions elsewhere when other areas of society aren't shamed in this way. There's over 50 billionaires in this country and some of these people have been quick to use the furlough scheme for their companies, including the likes of Mike Ashley and Joe Lewis of Newcastle and Spurs. Then there's loads of other people who earn in excess of footballers in this country.

Very similar opinion

[Billy Balfour]

It doesn't take long for hypocrisy to catch up when an MP sticks his oar in for a bit of bandwagon-jumping publicity.

https://bit.ly/2UFxVBE

[Elizabeth]

Jordan Henderson sets up Premier League coronavirus fund for the NHS.

[evensteadiereddie]

Good for him.

[TheFamilyCat]

No resumption to PL on 30th April. Clubs to ask players to take 30% pay cuts.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/52148955