Always be first in firing line when it comes to wages Petit: Solidarity is crucial BLUES ACES’ TALKS STALL
CHELSEA have failed to reach a deal with their first-team stars over a pay cut.
The club asked the squad to take a 30 per cent hit on their salaries, which they refused.
And after the players’ counter-offer was turned down, talks between the two parties – with captain
Cesar Azpilicueta
(right) acting as middle man
– have been put on hold.
Chelsea, who are not furloughing any staff, say they have now “directed the team to focus their efforts on further supporting other charitable causes”.
Meanwhile, Olivier Giroud is staying for another season after the club took up the option of a further year on the striker’s contract.
EMMANUEL PETIT has urged Mesut Ozil to stand shoulder to shoulder with his team-mates during this time of crisis.
Three members of Arsenal’s squad have refused to join team-mates and take a 12.5 per cent pay cut on their salaries to help the club through the coronavirus pandemic.
And Ozil, who earns a whopping £350,000 a week, is one of those three.
The German ace insists he will consider taking an even bigger cut once the economic picture at The Emirates is clearer.
But until he is shown the extent of the damage caused and sees where the money the players are giving up is going, then he won’t be contributing a penny.
Petit understands his caution and is sick and tired of people making Ozil a scapegoat at the club.
But he also believes that as a high earner and senior member of the team, he should have stood by the younger players who are giving up their cash despite earning nowhere near as much.
Petit said: “Ozil is an easy target. For the last few years, he has always been targeted for the same reason – for the poor performances on the pitch and the fact he is earning so much money.
“But I understand he is doing a lot of things for charity and providing a lot of things for kids and communities as well.
“A lot of players are doing a lot of things through their foundations and carrying out charitable acts and just because the coronavirus is hitting all of us, it doesn’t mean those players aren’t doing other things to help out people.
“I have seen from Mesut that a lot of things have been done for charity over the past few years and we can thank him for that.
“But on top of that, when you see the big reaction when he doesn’t want to take a pay cut of 12.5 per cent of his wages, a lot of people don’t understand that.
“It’s quite difficult for most of the players – not for the top players because they are earning a lot of money.
“But there are a lot of players who don’t earn as much as they do so it’s a difficult question to answer.
“Ozil hasn’t said he won’t take a pay cut, he has just said he wants to wait some time to see what is going on for the club.
“Because financially big clubs are hit by the coronavirus but when the competition starts again with the
It’s good – but it’s common sense. Everyone understands the situation. A lot of clubs in Sweden have done the same.
“It’s very difficult to say what players in the Premier League should do.
“Big clubs playing in Europe probably have the money to pay.
“But even there, as well as the Championship, Leagues One and Two, if you do not receive money from tickets, sponsors and television, some of them will go bankrupt if they have to pay salaries as well.
TV rights and all the sponsors they are going to get the money back as well. “So you need to be cautious. We need to step back sometimes to analyse a situation. But the main thing for everyone is to show solidarity.”
Petit gets frustrated that footballers in general get so much grief for society’s ills.
He added: “At the moment, the coronavirus is hitting so many people economically and socially that all the targets are direct on footballers.
“It’s the same with racism, with money and the coronavirus. “It’s the same here in France – we are receiving a lot of criticism and people don’t know what the players and clubs are doing through their foundations for the community.
“I don’t want to say to people, ‘What do you do?’
“But I have the feeling that in some ways it’s always footballers that are always the target for criticism, whatever happens in our society.”