Brighton's Graham Potter takes pay cut and talks of challenges facing players
Graham Potter has become the latest Premier League manager to take a voluntary pay cut as the coronavirus crisis continues to envelop football, and has acknowledged his Brighton players face a challenge to maintain their mental wellbeing in unprecedented circumstances.
Two unnamed first-team players are recovering at home after testing positive for Covid-19 and the rest are training in isolation in line with government advice. Potter said “one or two” were not sleeping well and were worried about events.
Potter has joined the Bournemouth manager, Eddie Howe, in taking a significant pay cut, and Brighton’s technical director, Dan Ashworth, and chief executive, Paul Barber, have also volunteered a decrease in pay for the next three months, a gesture reluctantly accepted by the owner, Tony Bloom, who rejected the trio’s request to take a reduction in wages a fortnight earlier.
“It just felt like a normal thing to offer him because he has been good to me,” Potter said. “I know the pressure he is under as a chairman and the challenges he faces. It is a small part we can do but I think it was an important offer. Tony being Tony said: ‘Thank you very much but, at the moment, we are working through things.’ But as things have moved forward, I think we have come to the right decision to do what we have done.”
On Thursday Julian Knight, the chair of the digital, culture, media and sport committee, sent a letter to the Premier League expressing his “strong dismay” at some clubs’ decision to furlough non-playing staff while continuing to pay players; Newcastle, Norwich, Bournemouth and Tottenham are known to have done so.
Potter said he could “understand the criticism” directed towards players but hoped they would do the right thing, as the game’s stakeholders, including the Professional Footballers’ Association, prepare for further talks on Friday. “We want to try and do the right thing as a collective, as a humanity,” Potter said. “I am pretty sure football will come to those conclusions. It is up to them and the PFA to come to the right conclusions.”
Barber said Brighton were considering furloughing staff but hoped sacrificing wages would help protect hundreds of jobs, as well as around 2,500 people who indirectly rely on the club for employment. “We’ve seen our
income literally disappear overnight but our costs have remained,” Barber said. “Furloughing is something which we have certainly looked at but our intention is to try to maintain employment for our club and charity for as long as we can and to ensure they receive their full wages for as long as we can. We can’t rule anything out.”
He does not believe a blanket policy can be adopted by Premier League clubs given their different individual circumstances. On Thursday Norwich said their players, head coach Daniel Farke and executive committee would donate a percentage of their salaries, amounting to more than £200,000, to help people in Norfolk negatively affected by coronavirus.
Potter and his coaching staff are in regular dialogue with Brighton’s players, who are training as a team via videolink and have been given individual training programmes. Asked how they were coping in isolation,
Potter said: “I think, generally, well. But they’re human beings. It’s not comfortable. One or two are finding it difficult in terms of they’re not sleeping so well and just trying not to worry too much about their own situation.
“The unknown of what’s going to happen is a challenge. They are human beings as well and some will deal with it better than others. And some will find it a challenge. We have to make sure we keep in contact with them and, generally, their attitude and their mentality has been really, really positive.”