OLE £135m SAUL TRADER
MANCHESTER UNITED are growing increasingly confident of landing Saul Niguez in a club record £135m deal. United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has targeted the Spain and Atletico Madrid ace (left) to replace Paul Pogba in midfield.
Pogba, United’s current record signing at £89m, is
STARERXEPCOLRUTESRIVE by JOHN CROSS
PAUL SCALLY has warned players must take wholesale wage cuts – or 1,000 of them will end up on the dole.
The Gillingham chairman insists that professionals at all levels, from Premier League down to League Two, will have to reduce their contracts drastically to save football after the coronavirus crisis.
Businessman Scally (right) believes up to 45 clubs in the EFL will be in danger unless the “reset button” is pressed and even top-flight clubs will struggle to pay wages.
Scally, one of the biggest voices in the EFL, believes there should be a “solidarity plan” where every club comes together and wants to see:
● Agreed wholesale wage cuts and no poaching players from each other – players will have to accept it.
● Wealthy Premier League giants providing loans to keep lower division clubs alive.
● A solidarity tax to force clubs who pay fines on overspending into a pot to ease the cash crisis.
● Every player drastically reducing their costs for the next three months to save football.
Scally said: “If the PFA says players won’t take a pay cut, then you will find most clubs in Leagues One and Two won’t be paying them.
“Then you will have 20 players at each club – 50 clubs, 1,000 players – out of work and (PFA chief executive) Gordon Taylor
(inset) is not stupid. He will know that.
“It will be exactly the same in the Premier League, believe me. If this goes on for a long time, there’s no way that Premier League clubs can carry on paying players £100,000 a week, let alone £200,000 a week. No chance.
“If you’ve got a player on £3,000 a week in League One, they maybe take home about £8,500 a month, and how much do they need?
“You can take a mortgage holiday in these desperate times. You don’t need too much to get by. They’ve got to readjust – or be out of work.
“If you’re a Premier League star, got five cars, then just don’t pay the lease for three months. There’s something not right about the wealth in the Premier League but this is Doomsday, this is Armageddon.
“It will be a wake-up call. The Ferraris will be going, the Lamborghini too. Fans have had enough of it. Football is in a bubble and maybe it needs to burst.
“If it means wage cuts, then that’s how it’s got to be. If we show solidarity, all four divisions, the 91 clubs, we all agree not to buy from each other and then none of the players can move and they’ll have to take it or leave it when it comes to the contracts.
“If Gordon Taylor turns round and says, ‘You’re in breach of contract, they can all walk free.’ OK, let them all walk free and see where they end up.
“I think it will be well received by the fans. I reckon people will be more comfortable if football goes back to the real world. No one wants to read about £100m transfers. That’s obscene when people and society is struggling and it’s life and death.
“The state-owned fund that owns Man City, they’ve not got to give football anything, but why not give football a soft loan of £100m, over five or 10 years, to League One or League Two clubs? It
■ would get us through six months and be a drop in the ocean for them.
“I’m disappointed that something like that has not happened but there are talks between the Premier League, EFL and PFA. I hope something can be sorted – it should be.
“There should be a solidarity pot. Championship clubs would be forced to pay 20 per cent of their losses. That would soon reduce their losses!”
Scally has paid all his players up to the end of March and sent a four-page letter to all of them this weekend asking them to readjust during the next three months, but says deferrals will not be enough.
He said: “Deferrals don’t help. If we defer the wages, then I’ve got to find £600,000 in a few months. Where am I going to find that? We’ve lost games. We can’t treat staff differently from players.
“Anything is possible if we all come together. In Leagues One or Two you’re probably talking about 40 or 45 clubs in serious
danger.” expected to join Real Madrid in the next transfer window – provided the Spanish giants are willing to meet United’s £100m asking price.
And executive vicechairman Ed Woodward is willing to use the cash to fund a move for 25-year-old central midfielder Niguez.
United are ready to meet the buy-out clause in Niguez’s nine-year deal at Atletico and make him one of the highest-paid stars in the team.
The club have also been keeping tabs on Holland and Ajax star Donny van de Beek, 22, but fear he prefers a move to Real instead of Old Trafford.
And they will have to break the bank to land England winger Jadon Sancho. That’s the warning from Borussia Dortmund bosses.
United are leading the race for Sancho, 20, and are increasingly confident of securing a deal for the £100m-rated star.
But Dortmund chief executive Hans-joachim Watzke said: “I can clearly say that even the very rich clubs, despite the existential crisis, do not have to believe that they can go on a bargain tour with us. We don’t have to sell anyone below value.”