PAY CUTS WON’T BE ACCEPTED

I WAS chatting to a former sporting director of a Premier League club this week and he came up with an interesting one.

Nottingham Forest and Everton have been deducted points due to the crass overspend and negligence of the club’s owners to keep their financial houses in order.

We’re not talking about the legitimacy of the punishments here, by the way, just the fact that they’ve been handed out.

My pal thinks there will be a group of very unhappy players in those dressing rooms who might take legal action against their own clubs.

Think about it. Let’s say the average wage at a Premier League club is around £3million a year. It’s probably higher, believe it or not, but let’s use that figure.

Each player will have a clause in his contract that will see his wages slashed by half if the club is relegated.

That’s a £1.5m cut – that they will have to take on the chin.

Or will they?

If, with the addition of those points, the club would have survived, the players could turn around to the club and say: ‘You’ve cost me £1.5m. We’ve done our job on the pitch. We picked up enough points to survive. So, I want you to honour my contract on that basis – because this points deduction isn’t our fault’.

If that player has a contract which has another couple of seasons to run, it could end up costing him almost £5m.

Their agents will be taking a financial hit, too. Their take is a percentage of the player’s wage – they’re unlikely to be jumping for joy at seeing their salary chopped in half.

It’s a lot of money to lose. That’s why there could be an issue in the coming few weeks.

Watch this space.