Clubs to hold pay-cut talks with players

PREMIER League clubs have begun individual negotiations with their players about potential wage cuts following the failure of weekend collective talks aimed at agreeing a pay deal.

Top players have come under increasing pressure to forgo or defer some of their salaries while the game is on lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Health secretary Matt Hancock has been among the most vocal critics, urging the game’s biggest stars to help fund the hospice sector during the crisis.

Current and former players such as Wayne Rooney and Gary Neville have dismissed Hancock’s intervention, while Burnley manager Sean Dyche yesterday insisted footballers deserve more credit for their work to help good causes.

Dyche said: ‘It is such a massive generalisation for Mr Hancock to throw that in. I can only hope he was ill informed.

‘I can assure everyone, I know for a fact that individual players are doing things from their own pockets for different causes. What happens then is they

■ MANCHESTER United’s Luke Shaw believes the season must be scrapped and declared null and void if it cannot be restarted. Speaking during a Combat Corona fundraiser for Unicef, Shaw said: ‘Scrap it and start again. Start it again, yeah. It’s got to be. If we can’t carry it on, it’s got to be void.’

do all that and someone comes along and says, “Right we are taking this from you”, and they go, “Hang on a minute, I am already doing all this”.’

Professional Footballers’ Association chief Gordon Taylor yesterday reiterated his members are not against pay cuts, but need greater clarity about where the saved money would be spent.

‘It’s not that they (players) don’t appreciate the seriousness of what we are in,’ he told Sky Sports.

‘It’s that if their money is being affected they want to know what’s happening with it, and they would like the choice of where it goes.’