Union unmoved by request for player pay cuts
The players’ union yesterday rejected pleas from Premier League clubs and Government for footballers to accept immediate pay cuts, despite a direct appeal from Health Secretary Matt Hancock amid fears of a financial meltdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In a wide-ranging statement, the Professional Footballers’ Association, led by its veteran chief executive Gordon Taylor, said that it would not simply give clubs a free hand in cutting players’ salaries or offering deferrals.
Taylor, who is the voice of the PFA, said in the statement: “In instances where clubs have the resources to pay all staff, the benefit of players paying nonplaying staff salaries will only serve the business of the club’s shareholders”. This came despite an earlier call from Hancock in the Government’s daily coronavirus update directly to Premier League footballers to “make a contribution, take a pay cut and play their part”.
As many clubs throughout the divisions including the Premier League furloughed non-playing staff and some in the Championship negotiated major pay cuts with squads, Taylor said that football should not be absolved of its financial responsibilities. “Our current position,” the PFA said, “is that — as businesses — if clubs can afford to pay their players and staff, they should.”
The statement came after another day of talks between the PFA, the Premier League and the English Football League aimed at getting an agreement on salary deferrals and cuts ahead of a shareholders’ video conference for the 20 Premier League clubs. Taylor, who is due to step down in November after 39 years in charge of the PFA, has found himself unexpectedly thrust back on to the front line of union negotiations in this, the dusk of a long and lucrative career.
The 75-year-old said his member did not want to see clubs’ staff furloughed unfairly and that any use of the
Government’s coronavirus job retention scheme “without genuine financial need is detrimental to the wider society”.
The PFA statement added: “We understand the severity of the situation and the challenges that clubs from all divisions face. We have requested, via the leagues, that clubs provide us with information about their
PHOTO / AP financial position, so that we can make informed decisions for the future — both immediate and long-term.”
The PFA gave a chaotic picture of English football in which its members had been presented with paperwork by “multiple EFL clubs” to agree to pay cuts, furloughs or deferrals in the 24 hours before the March payday.
The PFA said: “As the players’ union, we have a duty of care to our members and advised that players should not sign any contractual amendments, particularly when being put under significant pressure, without being fully informed. There was no consistency from clubs with regard to wording and the terms being offered. This meant the PFA was dealing with a high number of differing cases in a short space of time.”
Earlier, Hancock had urged players to take pay cuts. Prior to that, the Department for Media, Culture and Sport select committee chairman Julian Knight called for a windfall tax on clubs that refused to cut the salaries of players while cutting the pay of non-playing staff or those on furlough.
Hancock said that “everybody needs to play their part in this national effort and that means Premier League footballers too”. In response to a question he said: “Given the sacrifice many people are making including some of my colleagues in the NHS who have made the ultimate sacrifice of going into work and caught the disease and sadly died . . . the first thing Premier League footballers can do is to make a contribution, take a pay cut and play their part.”
Taylor said that the PFA would contribute to any financial relief but refused to make any promises about deferrals and cuts which means that the Premier League executive will have little progress to report to their members. “While we have a remit to protect our members, throughout our history, we have also done our utmost to protect the wider game. There are a large number of clubs within English football who would simply no longer exist without the PFA’S support. We have often been the organisation to pick up the pieces when clubs hit financial difficulty.
“We fully accept that players will have to be flexible and share the financial burden of the Covid19 outbreak in order to secure the long-term future of their own club and indeed the wider game. Our advice going out to players at this point reflects that expectation.”