Following the elongated suspension placed on football activities in Europe due to the outbreak of COVID-19, many football clubs have been introducing pay cuts to their staff. Football clubs will do everything possible to stay afloat during this turbulent time that has greatly affected all the necessary means of generating revenue for clubs. No more ticketing, sponsorship has greatly reduced, and Television right has been badly affected. Apparently, little or no funds are coming in for football clubs at this time, if care is not taken many clubs might declare bankruptcy even football returns.
In order to control this, some clubs have introduced pay cut to their playing squad with some substantial percentage been donated to health and charity to help in the fight against Covid-19. English football club, Liverpool announced on Saturday 4th April that it has placed some members of the non-playing staff on furlough. According to the Reds members of the staff that are affected by this new policy can claim up to 80% of their salary worth about £2,500 per month from the United Kingdom government. Although, Liverpool claimed that the club is ready to reimburse any shortfall in their pay.
However, all that didn’t please some angry former Liverpool players, Jamie Carragher and Collymen who believed the club should not rely on the government to pay. In a series of tweets posted by Carragher, he said: “Jurgen Klopp showed compassion for all at the start of this pandemic, senior players heavily involved in Premier League players taking wage cuts. Then all that respect and goodwill is lost, poor this Liverpool.”
Similarly, former Liverpool player Stan Collymen also blasted the Reds for taking such a decision. In his opinion, he said through a tweet:
“I don’t know of any Liverpool fan of any standing that won’t be anything other than disgusted at the club for furloughing staff. It’s just plain f*cking wrong.
“Fellow football fans, furlough is for small business staff to keep those small businesses from going bump! Every Premier League owner has serious cash, and make money from skyrocketing values of clubs, so what aren’t you getting about YOUR owners dipping into THEIR pocket?”
