Well Done Footballers by Dan Smith
People (including here on Just Arsenal) have been very quick to criticise footballers for being hesitant in taking a wage cut. That’s exactly what the Premier League and Owners want you to do.
As Wayne Rooney was brave enough to point out, there’s a reason that an issue not even discussed with players was conveniently leaked to the media.
They know the average person in the street would be disgusted that say an Ozil would not lose 30 percent of his salary, therefore pressuring him to do so. In the process, of course, that takes the spotlight off why the League itself has so far only donated 20 million (towards the game) while the likes of Stan Kroenke, worth 8.8 billion is yet to publicly put his hand in his pocket.
Meanwhile 4 clubs have had the nerve to take up the government scheme of getting help to pay their staff. After pressure Liverpool changed their minds doing this, accepting football is not the kind of business the government had in mind when the scheme was set up.
It’s quite tacky just to tell players what to do. Chairmen accept they can’t legally enforce any reductions so have tried to peer pressure players. It means even if they got their way, the public would say they were forced to, so players wouldn’t even get any credit. My argument has always been let’s wait and see.
In terms of insurance, contracts, legality, etc, we need to stop pretending we know all the facts. No matter how rich you are, I believe most human beings are good people. It’s wrong to paint a picture of ‘just because your wealthy it makes you greedy’. Therefore it was wrong to assume players wouldn’t want to donate their money.
It’s not their fault how much income the sport generates. What we have to remember though, as much as they make, so does the club. They are right to ask what’s the clubs plans to help.
The idea that the players have set up their own initiative, called “Players Together”, is better than the 30 percent idea, simply because they have stressed that money is going to the NHS. That’s more important than their 30 percent going back into the game. Meanwhile the more they get paid, the higher the taxes they have to pay.
It’s unfortunate if football clubs lose revenue but it’s the same for a lot of businesses at the moment. Yet that is the owner’s problem to deal with. In no other profession would a billionaire owner look at losing millions and expect his staff to sort it out.
It’s 750 million owed to TV companies if the season can’t be finished. Again we need to wait and see what happens and not speculate. The season might finish. Sky might compromise. An agreement for the next season might happen. There could be a legal loophole?
FIFA have already said there is 2.2 billion to help the sport. In the worse case though that’s 38 million per club. Stan Kroenke can afford that.
In the worst case a club could sell a player to fund it. Not ideal, but put it into perspective in terms of what else is happening in the world. So anyone who told the players to hang their heads in shame needs to be big enough to say ‘well done’ now they are doing something through the Players Together Fund which will help the NHS.
It is still more then Stan Kroenke has done.
Dan Smith