PREMIER LEAGUE clubs have all agreed to discuss their players taking wage cuts or deferrals of up to 30 per cent wage after their latest round of talks on April 3.

The move comes just hours after Manchester United became the first club to reduce their salaries, sacrificing 30 per cent of their wages for one month with the understanding that it will go to hospitals and health centres throughout Manchester in the fight against coronavirus.

Similar moves are now set to be replicated across the English football leagues following today’s video conference involving all the Premier League clubs.

A recent study from YouGov revealed more than ninety percent of adults in Britain believed Premier League players should take a pay-cut during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a further two-thirds insisting that any reduction should represent fifty percent or more of their salaries. 

The results come after a number of top flight clubs, including Norwich, Bournemouth, Newcastle and Tottenham, opted to utilise the government’s job retention scheme for its non-playing staff.

As Julian Knight, chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee pointed out this week however, this is not what the scheme was designed for, considering the hundreds of millions clubs have ring fenced for player wages.

Tottenham, where squad members are paid an average of £70,000 a week, have gone as far as announcing a twenty percent pay cut for its 550 non-playing staff, while Bournemouth revealed “a number of staff” would be furloughed, with senior hierarchy, including manager Eddie Howe, taking voluntary pay-cuts. 

Among players however, similar acts of compassion have been lacking, with the few  exceptions including Leeds, whose players agreed a wage deferral and Birmingham, where players have agreed a fifty percent cut.

In Europe, Juventus, Bayern Munich and Dortmund have agreed salary reductions while at Barcelona, Lionel Messi himself declared players would be taking a seventy percent cut. 

With the grim financial inequalities of football more visible than ever, the question remains why there hasn’t been a more widespread movement among those with the “broadest shoulders” to “carry the greatest burden”, as London Mayor Sadiq Khan noted this week. 

After the PFA urged players to consult them before agreeing to pay-cuts, any official decision threatened to be mired in bureaucracy.