Sport Club Greek Mega Thread - The Bear and Badger

Dinostar77

RamSteelwood wrote:

Plus if they were that concerned they could still tax the gross and donate some out of their net!

I see that slimeball Gordon Taylor is still around and was seemingly the one who refused the deal. Can't believe he hasn't been caught out for something dodgy yet.

He's on £2mil a year salary. Which caused controversy at the time. Was supposed to have resigned a year ago.

mistercrayon

Funkstain wrote:

My favourite bit is their age-old rich person's defence against pay cuts: the NHS / other tax-funded service would lose out because less tax take, as if these fuckers pay anything like normal rates of income tax on their revenue

Yah the PFA calculations: if these guys lose 500m in pay that’s 200m lost (ie top rate tax). Fuck off. I know they’re meant to protect their workers but they’re treating everyone like mugs.

I bet they weaselled it by saying “up to £200m” thinking about it.

yourfavouriteuncle

Just to be very clear on this as I’m getting a bit sick of this disgraceful football club vibe going on - the players are not employees of the clubs. Not one of em outside the top 3 divisions and out of the trainee system are directly employed by the club they play for.
The clubs clearly have nowhere to go on this unless they have something within contracts about not paying players during plague level epidemics and so can’t renege on these contracts without being in breach.
The clubs are therefore looking at saving costs by cutting back on wages on the people they do directly employ (and aren’t currently able to do their jobs) just like every other fucking business in the country is having to do. Idg the outrage, it’s proper blinkered red top style vitriol.

yourfavouriteuncle

I mean the players could approach the club if they wanted and tell them they’ve all agreed as a squad or individuals or whatever that they’d defer one week in every four of their costs to help pay the wages of the clubs employees. I *think* Andy Carrol offered something along these lines. That’s not up to the clubs though, they’re not in a position to demand it. They could ask as part of a PR push or something.

Kernowgaz

yourfavouriteuncle wrote:

Just to be very clear on this as I’m getting a bit sick of this disgraceful football club vibe going on - the players are not employees of the clubs. Not one of em outside the top 3 divisions and out of the trainee system are directly employed by the club they play for.
The clubs clearly have nowhere to go on this unless they have something within contracts about not paying players during plague level epidemics and so can’t renege on these contracts without being in breach.
The clubs are therefore looking at saving costs by cutting back on wages on the people they do directly employ (and aren’t currently able to do their jobs) just like every other fucking business in the country is having to do. Idg the outrage, it’s proper blinkered red top style vitriol.

Who are the players employed by then?

Liverpool announced in Feb record profits, they should be taking the hit, don’t these purport to be part of the community? Lower league clubs I can understand but not Liverpool or any other premier league team.

Haven’t Leeds players taken a massive pay cut so the employees don’t have to?

yourfavouriteuncle

The players are contractors. They are not employed directly by the club and nearly all are either limited companies, partnerships with their agents/wives/families or some kind of weird offshore setups for a lot of the overseas players. The clubs cannot furlough most of their playing staff as they don’t employ them in the first place. I don’t know what’s in the contracts but I’m presuming there’s little in there about an attack of a superbug destroying their income. I’m not arguing it’s a fair and rational setup that the employees (on lower wages just to make it look even worse) are no longer being paid their full wage but the clubs aren’t doing this out of some perverse way of currying favour with the players and choosing them over staff lower down the wage scale. They just don’t have a choice in who they do or don’t furlough.

The Leeds players got together to agree lowered wages and approached the club as a group.

I wrote something a while back about my son being in an academy for a team who are doing some shitty secret training btw in news linked to nothing above.

I_R

We want nonessential workers to stay at home, so there's a scheme in place where businesses close and the government pays 80% of wages. Why treat football as separate from any other business. I don't really see the problem beyond football fan point scoring about which team is doing the right thing and newspaper loathing of people earning lots of money without being alleged wealth creators.

LivDiv

A couple of other things with this.
Even if the players were employees they can refuse to be furloughed. Normally that would result in redundancy but that cant happen as players are expensive assets.
Further a furloughed employee cannot work while furloughed, which for a player would include any training or treatment managed by the club.

The clubs hands are tied by this.

As for the players. As far as I can tell a number of them are working on something led by Henderson. The plan appears to be to not take a paycut but instead use 30% of their pay and give it directly to the NHS or other routes that can get it directly to aiding frontline workers. If they take a paycut it isn't just the tax thing but all that money being lost in the ether.

I'm with Uncle on this. The outrage is getting really old. I wonder how many comparable non-football businesses are furloughing staff.

Kernowgaz

But isn’t the furloughing of employee’s mainly to stop the businesses going out of business? Liverpool and I imagine every premier league are in no trouble of doing that.

It’s taking the money from the government, when they’re being stretched enough as it is, when they’d be comfortable playing the employees for 2-3 months.

LivDiv

They could furlough regular employees while not taking money from the gov yes and they should be topping up salaries as well, no excuse not to.
It is there to be taken though, I cant imagine there will be many companies not taking it.

Kernowgaz

It’s great the players are going to do that though.

afgavinstan

It's a fair argument on both sides, I'd just really, really fucking like... I dunno,... Real actual billionaires and properly stupid rich people be held to the same standard.

Dinostar77

Players are PAYE not contractors. I tweeted Ian McGarry to ask and he replied PAYE. If anyone should know he would having been in the football industry for over three decades.

I disagree with @uncle. I hope Gov does something to stop PL using furlough. Its bullshit.

Barcelona smand Juventus players took huge paycuts and helping out non playing staff of their clubs financially.

cockbeard

Why on earth do you all think PL clubs are rich??

If I earn 100 a week and spend 85 a week, I'm technically richer than if I earn 1000 and spend 920. Bear in mind that if Sky withold payments, much like the French rights holder has threatened, then all these clubs will be out by probably a third of their TV money, all of them fuckered

Dinostar77

cockbeard wrote:

Why on earth do you all think PL clubs are rich??

If I earn 100 a week and spend 85 a week, I'm technically richer than if I earn 1000 and spend 920. Bear in mind that if Sky withold payments, much like the French rights holder has threatened, then all these clubs will be out by probably a third of their TV money, all of them fuckered

Because every PL club gets £60mil a year in tv money and cant exceed 60% turnover on wages. Therefore they can afford to pay non playing staff who earn a normal way like people on here. The average PL salary is 20k a WEEK.

cockbeard

Yet hardly any clubs turn a profit, just because there's what looks like a lot sloshing around, doesn't mean it isn't all already needed

That isn't me saying that PL clubs and players shouldn't do whatever they can to preserve jobs for their other staff, or help within their communities, of course they should. I don't believe that journalists or the government have a mandate to force them to do so though

Really the fairest way to do this would've been that furloughing was only available to companies with under 200 employees, as long as directors payments totalled no more than 20M in last 12 months

Kernowgaz

I’m surprised Arsenal haven’t furloughed their staff yet (maybe after April). Our owner is a top class billionaire cunt, 3 or 4 years ago our season tickets went up, a combined total of £5M , which equaled the club paid himself for consulting fees.

yourfavouriteuncle

Yeah there’s a lot of stoopid bizness talk here. Just because there’s a lot of money going through the system doesn’t automatically make every business involved in it rich. Big turnover, sure, but that doesn’t mean they’re all rolling around in loadsa free lovely money. For most of em they’re on a tightrope. Barca aren’t far from collapsing at the best of times, the investors could choose to call in their loans at Man Utd and that’s gone within a month. Most businesses are run on a tightrope. Football clubs, even the big ones and the ones you really really like, are no different. Massive turnover doesn’t mean they’re any healthier if it all that money keeps going out in a hundred different directions.

I will cede on my point about limited companies and contractors now that Dino has sent a tweet to a man somewhere though. Luckily we can all ignore those companies openly listed at companies house, I guess and the VAT receipts and expenses I’ve been asked to submit for a load of em in the past. My son and I have also erased those classes he received as part of the club education programme on any potential future career in football and how to manage their careers. He knows about PAYE you see.

It’s defo easier to be emotional about this as they’re rich young men with a big old public profile and if we want to demand their money then we can goddammit. We know their names and faces you see. We really dislike some of them simply for who they contract to - sorry, work for - and take those biases with us into constructing furious narratives around who we think they are. They’re in a tight spot I think. A lot of people know roughly how much they earn and can therefore bash them over the heads with it like they would t do the same. Are any of you furious with, oh idk, Alan Sugar or Lewis Hamilton or Taylor Swift or Ryan Reynolds or the chief executive of Sainsbury’s or Netflix or whoever for not giving us a third of their earnings right now? Srsly, just try putting yourself in their position before admonishing them for something far bigger than them. Think it’s called empathy?

yourfavouriteuncle

I also don’t do internet arguments though so I’m done in here for now. Just my view is all and I appreciate you’ve all your own too so I’m gonna now out now. Love to all.

Diluted Dante

cockbeard wrote:

Yet hardly any clubs turn a profit, just because there's what looks like a lot sloshing around, doesn't mean it isn't all already needed

13 clubs made a profit in 17/18. Of those that didnt, several did the season before.

Dinostar77

Interesting transfer window podcast.

So i wasnt aware that Man Utd players have already offered 30% off their salaries while this pandemic is ongoing to causes in manchester which need money. This was organised by harry maguire. He also organised a meeting of all the premier league captains via video conferencing to discuss what their teams could do to help. Players more organised than the PFA or premier league.

So the optimistic view is that football may restart in September however some of the big clubs are planning for football restarting in january 2021 behind closed doors.

Do agree that britains 500 odd billionaires have been somewhat silent during this pandemic apart from the owner of ineos who said his company would make ventilators free of charge for nhs.

@uncle i will agree to disagree with you and leave it at that.

GooberTheHat

I'm not a massive Rooney fan, but I can't disagree with much, if any, of this.

Derby striker Rooney says he is happy to offer support but asked: "Why are footballers suddenly the scapegoats?"

In his Sunday Times column, the 34-year-old ex-England captain added: "For the Premier League to just announce the proposal, as it has done, increases the pressure on players and in my opinion it is now a no-win situation: if players come out and say they can't agree or are not willing to cut by 30%, even if the real reasons are that it will financially ruin some, it will be presented as 'Rich Players Refuse Pay Cut'.

"It seemed strange to me because every other decision in this process has been kept behind closed doors, but this had to be announced publicly.

"Why? It feels as if it's to shame the players - to force them into a corner where they have to pick up the bill for lost revenue."

Funkstain

Just to be clear, my issue here is the basic one of very rich people who ARE paid by the club, whatever their renumeration structure is, not willing to come to a simple arrangement to save their clubs money which can be used to continue paying for their much-less-well renumerated staff, and instead using bullshit PAYE excuses, and in Rooney's case, a laughable comment about "financial ruination".

It doesn't have to be enforced, it can be voluntary (witness Barca and other clubs here), but it sure looks like shit when you, as multi millionaire, refuse to make any gesture and back that up with rubbish excuses whilst others much less well off suffer.

This opinion applies to any and all of the millionaire / billionaire class and would apply even in pandemic free times.

It's all very well saying the players have been left out to dry by fuckers running clubs (this is also true -always remember things can be more than one thing at the same time!), that doesn't make the players look any better does it?

monkey

I might be wrong on this but the PFA are negotiating on behalf of all pro players from Man City to Accrington Stanley, covering players earning tens of millions a year to players earning probably not much more than the national average salary. The Premier League took a look at the shitty headlines they were getting and thought 'Fuck this, it's taking too long, let's bounce the players into taking a big headline pay cut.' Rooney, admittedly a twat, is calling this out as bullshit. What's happening to the rest of the money? How much of a haircut are the owners taking, the tv channels etc? It's fair enough for people being asked to take the cut to know who else is losing out.

Why footballers? Why's it so important for footballers to save their billionaire employers money? Other than them being a visible and symbolic punchbag for the Tories and the billionaire class. This conversation should be about people earning above eg £100k, eg £1m, whatever.

LivDiv

Probably because most other industries don't have their financials discussed anywhere near as much as football.

I_R

There's obviously an element where the sports pages need filled and there's nothing else at the moment. It all seems inconsequential at best and at worst a deliberate distraction from the actual issues going on though. Lets demand this particular group take the most moral position possible, but only them.

monkey

This started, roughly I think, when Mike Ashley furloughed his non-playing staff, while still taking season ticket payments from fans and still paying the players full whack. So it's natural to look at that and ask why the millionaires are still on full pay while the ordinary folk are getting stiffed.

Matt Hancock was asked about this, or maybe when Spurs did it, in the middle of a press conference when he was trying to sound tough on all things virus-related. Boom. Instant response. Press the populist "Footballers are overpaid namby pambies" button for instant applause.

Of course they can take a pay cut. But then so can everyone else with similar levels of wealth and income. It is the focus on footballers alone that is rotten and should be called out.

afgavinstan

On. The. Money.

Funkstain

monkey wrote:

This started, roughly I think, when Mike Ashley furloughed his non-playing staff, while still taking season ticket payments from fans and still paying the players full whack. So it's natural to look at that and ask why the millionaires are still on full pay while the ordinary folk are getting stiffed. Matt Hancock was asked about this, or maybe when Spurs did it, in the middle of a press conference when he was trying to sound tough on all things virus-related. Boom. Instant response. Press the populist "Footballers are overpaid namby pambies" button for instant applause. Of course they can take a pay cut. But then so can everyone else with similar levels of wealth and income. It is the focus on footballers alone that is rotten and should be called out.

yes I agree

but the footballers could move the focus off of them and onto other richy richers by, you know, agreeing to fund something they can easily afford (by footballers I clearly mean premier league millionaires btw)

like I said, it can be two things: is it rotten that millionaire club owners have directed all the attention onto footballers? yes. is it however also rotten that millionaire footballers are not paying an affordable amount (to them)? yes.

I have never taken the position that "only" rich footballers should contribute towards their state's and/or club's welfare, but I do take the position that a rich footballer, who sees the staff at their club being furloughed, could help that situation easily and quickly and deserve to be called out for their lack of action - and the PFA's response is laughable

Diluted Dante

I think the PFA are taking the approach that the rich players give them the leverage to protect the not rich players, and is why they have asked them to not split off.

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