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Prem players agree to give their money to NHS charities

$hoguN

Well-Known Member
Jul 25, 2005
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And so are the many millionaires who own businesses in this country who are using the furlough scheme and aren't paying money out of their back pocket - There's nothing stopping the likes of Virgin, Easyjet, Mothercare, Pret, Capita owners and board members paying out but they used the scheme as well so why weren't they called out?

It’s not about their own back pocket it’s about not having only most highly paid staff receiving renumeration for not doing anything whilst everyone else is furloughed.
 

Shadydan

Well-Known Member
Jul 7, 2012
38,247
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It’s not about their own back pocket it’s about not having only most highly paid staff receiving renumeration for not doing anything whilst everyone else is furloughed.

Which isn't the player's fault nor is it their duty to provide for them, it's down to their employers.
 

Rocksuperstar

Isn't this fun? Isn't fun the best thing to have?
Jun 6, 2005
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Which isn't the player's fault nor is it their duty to provide for them, it's down to their employers.

This virus isn't any of our faults either, but we're still sacrificing what we need to to muck in the effort.

I'm of the belief that when a company is in trouble, the cuts come from the top first - the highest earners at football clubs, right now, are players who aren't generating the clubs any money at all but, instead of making bigger savings with fewer sacrifices, the clubs are forced to reduce the wages of those who will be most affected by it and who had equally as little say in the matter as the players.

It boils down to one thing - rich people protecting rich interests once more. They could've looked at the broader picture - they are employees under contract the same as anyone else, millions are becoming unemployed, millions more are having to make sacrifices without any choice at all, yet footballers... yeah, nah.. maybe... we'll think about it, discuss it and come back to you with an offer.

Massively disappointed with the PFA & the players over this. Regardless of this gesture the fact that they have to be elevated to outside of what's required of everyone else in society when it's that very community that pays them wages is pretty stomach churning. Now people are applauding these efforts? Fuck off, take your 20% cut like everyone else, get with the damn program. This is bigger than you. You're not doctors or nurses, you're not scientists who will benefit any of mankind during this situation, right now you are a drain on the coffers of everybody so get down from that tower and roll your fucking sleeves up.

imho, obvs.
 

Marty

Audere est farce
Mar 10, 2005
39,884
62,541
This virus isn't any of our faults either, but we're still sacrificing what we need to to muck in the effort.

I'm of the belief that when a company is in trouble, the cuts come from the top first - the highest earners at football clubs, right now, are players who aren't generating the clubs any money at all but, instead of making bigger savings with fewer sacrifices, the clubs are forced to reduce the wages of those who will be most affected by it and who had equally as little say in the matter as the players.

It boils down to one thing - rich people protecting rich interests once more. They could've looked at the broader picture - they are employees under contract the same as anyone else, millions are becoming unemployed, millions more are having to make sacrifices without any choice at all, yet footballers... yeah, nah.. maybe... we'll think about it, discuss it and come back to you with an offer.

Massively disappointed with the PFA & the players over this. Regardless of this gesture the fact that they have to be elevated to outside of what's required of everyone else in society when it's that very community that pays them wages is pretty stomach churning. Now people are applauding these efforts? Fuck off, take your 20% cut like everyone else, get with the damn program. This is bigger than you. You're not doctors or nurses, you're not scientists who will benefit any of mankind during this situation, right now you are a drain on the coffers of everybody so get down from that tower and roll your fucking sleeves up.

imho, obvs.
Just for argument's sake, if Man City players take a 30% pay cut it leaves Abu Dhabi group with more money and gives the UK less tax income from those players. How would you solve that?
 

Rocksuperstar

Isn't this fun? Isn't fun the best thing to have?
Jun 6, 2005
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Just for argument's sake, if Man City players take a 30% pay cut it leaves Abu Dhabi group with more money and gives the UK less tax income from those players. How would you solve that?

Are the club in a situation where they would be unable to pay their staff if the players didn't? Or, flipping it around, if they did take a paycut, would it mean that others kept their jobs?

The situation at City is pretty unique - even the likes of Chelsea and Real don't have access to the sort of revenue City do, but this is a global issue - even if they have the reserves to sit on this for a while, the family will start to feel the rub in the long run and they are as responsible for their employees as any other employer. The global economy is slowing, nobody is flying or driving and at the same time there's this pissing contest with Russia over oil - they rely on people spending money to make money, to spend money, to make money.

So yes, they should take that cut as in the larger scheme of things it might mean that the owners don't lay off a few dozen other employees, be they staff at their stadium or the company that hoover the rugs in their palace back in Abu Dhabi.

I can totally see your argument and if it was a localised situation then I would be much more concerned about cash leaving the country but in the grand scheme of things that club probably funneled as much out of the country during normal operating conditions and if a company that is operating in a country are allowed to do that and are not obliged to pay relative taxes then there's already an issue there.

Another thing to consider is the players' images - while you do the logical thinking and ask the right sort of questions, to many it's as black and white as "They ain't pulling their weight" and a simple headline of "Players take paycut" would restore huge amounts of credit to their rep for a lot of people, regardless of where the money they are to forgo is going to end up.
 

Marty

Audere est farce
Mar 10, 2005
39,884
62,541
Are the club in a situation where they would be unable to pay their staff if the players didn't? Or, flipping it around, if they did take a paycut, would it mean that others kept their jobs?

The situation at City is pretty unique - even the likes of Chelsea and Real don't have access to the sort of revenue City do, but this is a global issue - even if they have the reserves to sit on this for a while, the family will start to feel the rub in the long run and they are as responsible for their employees as any other employer. The global economy is slowing, nobody is flying or driving and at the same time there's this pissing contest with Russia over oil - they rely on people spending money to make money, to spend money, to make money.

So yes, they should take that cut as in the larger scheme of things it might mean that the owners don't lay off a few dozen other employees, be they staff at their stadium or the company that hoover the rugs in their palace back in Abu Dhabi.

I can totally see your argument and if it was a localised situation then I would be much more concerned about cash leaving the country but in the grand scheme of things that club probably funneled as much out of the country during normal operating conditions and if a company that is operating in a country are allowed to do that and are not obliged to pay relative taxes then there's already an issue there.

Another thing to consider is the players' images - while you do the logical thinking and ask the right sort of questions, to many it's as black and white as "They ain't pulling their weight" and a simple headline of "Players take paycut" would restore huge amounts of credit to their rep for a lot of people, regardless of where the money they are to forgo is going to end up.
I don't disagree with you, I'm very much devil's advocate here but it's a really interesting discussion.

The problem is that "footballers" aren't a homogenous unit, not in the PL and certainly not within the PFA. Many League One and Two players won't be able to pay their mortgages if they take any sort of pay cut, and even within PL clubs you'll have a few mostly young players who aren't (yet) millionaires with tonnes of disposable income. Say Tanganga is on £4k a week, I have no idea if he is but for argument's sake, is it fair that he takes the same cut as Harry Kane on £200k? I'm not so sure and that makes any sort of blanket cut across the board more difficult to justify in practice.

Of course what I do think is ridiculous is to furlough non-playing staff and save perhaps £1m a month at best when the top two or three earning players alone take home the same, that I do find utterly shameful.
 

Rocksuperstar

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Jun 6, 2005
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While it's done on a percentage basis then, and I hate it but, yeah, they should. Just being a footballer doesn't make you immune to the real world - millions of people might not be able to pay their mortgage, that's an issue for the lenders to work out because, like i've said before in this thread, it's a chain of shit at the moment. The mortgage lenders need to be paid to pay their outgoings, to companies that have their own outgoings.

Would we have accepted if the Doctors and Nurses had decided to hold the NHS to ransom over their contracted hours and wages? I mean, they never would, but that's even more my point - footballers are employed to do a job. If that job doesn't exist then redundancy beckons and what we've got going on right now is an attempt by the government to offset millions upon millions of redundancies by scraping together all the folding they can find and spreading it as thick as they reasonably can.

Without football the role of a footballer becomes redundant but for some reason it doesn't, and despite being in the best financial position possible for a situation like this to suddenly arise, they are the ones who get to choose whether they contribute while the rest of us fall in line. It's very peculiar, I don't understand how this game got to where we are in just 28 years.

Whatever happened to rosettes on comically long, nana-knitted scarves, eh?
 

BehindEnemyLines

Twisting a Melon with the Rev. Black Grape
Apr 13, 2006
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It's worth noting that they have chosen to give to the NHS through their associated charities.....which means they'll get 25p in the £ tax relief on those payments and the charity will get a bonus 25% as giftaid.
 

vegassd

The ghost of Johnny Cash
Aug 5, 2006
3,356
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Without football the role of a footballer becomes redundant but for some reason it doesn't, and despite being in the best financial position possible for a situation like this to suddenly arise, they are the ones who get to choose whether they contribute while the rest of us fall in line. It's very peculiar, I don't understand how this game got to where we are in just 28 years.
It's a really interesting scenario and I think goes a long way to demonstrate how this big money game is simply not sustainable.

What I think is also very clear is that the media machine and all their customers don't really give a shit about what happens and instead prefer to feed on the most sensational headlines which require the least brain power to compute. The original Hancock comment was in response to a direct question from a journo which was treated with surprise in the briefing, but 24 hours later the media made it into a story and the feeding frenzy begins.

And by the time anyone thinks to actually ask the players what they might be planning there has been a shit storm of negativity surrounding them they probably don't much feel like helping. So many people were so keen to throw their uninformed opinions around they didn't stop to think about biting the hand that would have to feed.

Like you say, there are going to be all sorts of crappy chains happening around the world because of the virus and the various political responses. We simply don't know who made the best choices until the dust has settled. But it's so discouraging to see that there are people on this forum and around the country in general who seemed more concerned about shouting "the greater good" than actually thinking what that would entail.
 

Rocksuperstar

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Jun 6, 2005
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...ask the players what they might be planning... ...they probably don't much feel like helping.

This is the crux of the problem. Did you get a choice? I sort of did - I either accepted furloughing or my role potentially becomes redundant and I lose 100% instead of 20%. So, technically, no choice at all in the matter, it was what the charity I work for had to do and I'm one of the lucky ones here - millions have lost their jobs outright, businesses have closed down entirely, yet we have ask the players if they intend to chip in? And they might not feel like helping? This is a global issue that doesn't look at your bank account to decide if it feels like infecting you.

Lets work it from your angle then - what's the bottom line for earning when you get to decide if you contribute to society or continue to demand your paycheck? I mean, some of the EPL players are on a pretty fair wedge, but once you get into Div 2 then a lot are working in between matches to support their wages - do they get to pick and choose?

We've all got debts to pay, we've all got mortgages to cover, we've all got families and kids who need providing for - to separate out the portion of society who are (arguably) best placed to handle the situation and allow them to choose while those of us most at risk from poverty during the outbreak and for months after are not is just fucking absurd and I don't understand how anyone can argue that.

"But contract!" Yeah, take us to court - I fucking dare any player to try taking their club to court right now over wages. Like I said before, they would almost certainly win but in the process ruin their reputation.
 

vegassd

The ghost of Johnny Cash
Aug 5, 2006
3,356
3,330
Lets work it from your angle then - what's the bottom line for earning when you get to decide if you contribute to society or continue to demand your paycheck? I mean, some of the EPL players are on a pretty fair wedge, but once you get into Div 2 then a lot are working in between matches to support their wages - do they get to pick and choose?
That's not my angle at all - I think you may have misunderstood my point. Sorry if I wasn't being clear... I was more in agreement with you than anything I think!

It seems apparent that many players were fully prepared to muck in and I think a lot of them were already taking on projects that we don't hear about. But when you look at the amount of uncertainty in football, and combine it with the point you make about footballers across the country being on vastly different levels of pay, there is naturally going to be a delay in when the players would act.

My beef about the whole situation is why people feel it more important to get their knife in as early as possible rather than consider the full range of circumstances and full set of options available. It only serves to drive a wedge between communities at a time when we need people to be pulling together.

I don't want to get into an online battle about money because people have all sorts of views which can be opposed but equally valid. But I do think there are 2 points that are easy to miss when judging the players; the fact they have paid a huge amount of income tax already and will be making greater financial contributions than all of us (on this forum) combined in the coming weeks. In my view that sort of impact should be afforded a bit of time before the world and his dog start putting the boot in.

I'm a believer that charity begins at home so the #PlayersTogether scheme feels a bit like a reactionary PR move to me. I don't want to sound like I'm slagging it off because it's a very worthy thing, but to my mind it would have been better if players negotiated directly with their clubs first to work out a way to keep all staff comfortably with bread on the table. Then what can our players contribute to help small business in the Haringey area. And then look to national schemes. We also need to keep in mind that our foreign players will also want to be helping their communities back home.

So that all comes back to my main point; that because there was such a faff made about player salaries in the media that this NHS move was perhaps rushed out the door before a lot of players got their minds in order. It would be a shame if some of the biggest earners feel that if they just contribute to #PT then that sees them clear, because I think there's a lot more they could/should be doing.
 

nailsy

SC Supporter
Jul 24, 2005
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No it does not, if he hadn’t applied public pressure they wouldn’t have done it. The statement over the last week is telling

The players were already trying to do something before he got involved.
 

nailsy

SC Supporter
Jul 24, 2005
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If you buy that I’ve got some magic beans that might interest you

There were reports that Henderson and other team captains were talking to each other to try and do something way before he got involved.
 

jackroomy1993

New Member
Apr 17, 2020
2
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Captain Tom Moore is doing 100 laps of his garden at a rate of 10 laps per day, and aims to do so before his 100th birthday at the end of the month.
The original goal was to raise £1,000 for NHS Charities to help support with the pressures due to the on going COVID-19 pandemic.
He has so far raised just shy of £10 million
 
Last edited by a moderator:

nailsy

SC Supporter
Jul 24, 2005
30,536
46,628
Captain Tom Moore is doing 100 laps of his garden at a rate of 10 laps per day, and aims to do so before his 100th birthday at the end of the month.
The original goal was to raise £1,000 for NHS Charities to help support with the pressures due to the on going COVID-19 pandemic.
He has so far raised just shy of £10 million

Are we signing him?

He's raised over £21m now.
 
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