BARBER: MAKE MORE CUTS
Brighton chief urges Prem stars to further slash pay as Saints are first club to agree wage deferrals .. and no furloughs
PREMIER LEAGUE stars have been urged to slash their wages further after forking out millions making #playerstogether donations to the NHS.
The call from Brighton chief executive Paul Barber comes after Southampton yesterday became the first club to agree wage deferrals with players and staff.
Spelling out the grave financial landscape facing football, Barber urged others to follow the Saints’ lead.
“The financial position of our club, along with every other club in the country, is very serious,” Barber said.
“This is not a fire drill. This is real, this is probably the worst crisis the football industry has faced ever. And we must really take it seriously.”
The #playerstogether initiative has already generated £4million for the NHS and could raise up to £20m, after the 20 Premier League captains came together via WhatsApp and Zoom meetings to arrange the donations.
But after Premier League chief executive Richard Masters claimed on Tuesday that clubs are facing losses of up to £1billion, Barber pleaded with the PFA to broker a breakthrough with players, as clubs seek wage deferrals of up to 30 per cent.
He added: “I understand the PFA have been doing their jobs and represent the players – I totally respect that.
“But this is also a time when we need the PFA to help clubs get deals with their players, because it’s clubs that employ players and clubs that are in trouble. The further down the pyramid we go, the deeper that trouble is, and we really do need some help.
“There comes a point at which everybody in this difficult situation does need to come together... we need to think of the difficulty many clubs are in.
“Some are lucky, some have very, very wealthy owners, some are generating profits… but many clubs, including ours, aren’t, and therefore we need some help and now is the time. It’s not another month or two months’ away, it’s now.” Southampton players, manager Ralph Hasenhuttl (left) and his coaching staff have agreed to defer part of their salaries for three months “to help protect the future of the club, the staff that work within it and the community we serve”.
Saints have also introduced measures to help the club’s nonplaying staff, insisting they will not be using the government’s job retention scheme to furlough them in that period.
Seagulls captain Lewis Dunk and Glenn Murray have been leading Brighton players’ negotiations over wage deferrals with the club and Barber praised the “very positive and very constructive” talks.