“Where’s The Fair Play” – The PL’s Response To The Current Climate Betrays Football’s Roots, Villa Should Lead Not Follow
Particularly in light of Jack Grealish’s recent momentary lack of forethought and common sense, the one single thing Aston Villa have done well during the Coronavirus pandemic is keep their mouths firmly shut and not instantly think about their bottom line by following the ‘me, me, me’ attitude of the likes of Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur in quickly leaning on the taxpayer to take care of normal staff, whilst owners protected their investment and directors and ‘playing staff’ continued to selfishly take their ill-gotten full whack.
I say ill-gotten for a reason. I’m not going to get into whether Premier League footballers are overpaid, unfairly paid or whatever – those debates are for another day. They are irrelevant at the moment. That’s for the industry to sort out. However, they are, through no fault of their own, in no position to qualify their current wage packet, which severely affects the bottom line of clubs – their employers – and without that qualification in terms of making the club money, they shouldn’t think they live in a bubble.
Almost everyone else has taken a financial hit, whether employed and furloughed, or self-employed. Key Workers have issues of their own in terms of added pressure or increased workload, even if not losing out financially. And let’s not forget those poor buggers who have fallen through the cracks through no fault of their own, such as starting a new job on the wrong day. So where’s the fair play here?
Is A 30% Cut Fair At Premier League Level?
There are no Premier League clubs who deserve sympathy at this moment. Few Championship clubs do, but the sensible amongst us will feel for League One and Two clubs who don’t receive the broadcasters benefits and are far more reliant on matchday income (you know those clubs who have to value ‘fans’ rather than seeing them as an inconvenience or simply a subscriber/customer).
Any clubs players deferring wages have at least taken a step in the right direction – Southampton were the first – but it still implies they think they are too important to lose out and are superior to the very club staff that make their pampered existences possible.
We’ve seen others further down the pyramid furlough both playing and non-playing staff and that should be a reminder for the Premier League (whilst still pretty unfair on the taxpayer), as whilst they wouldn’t notice it in their normal lives given their pay and what 80% meant for them, it would still be a strong ‘you’re not that special’ moment. ‘We’ suffer, ‘you’ suffer, it’s a former pig’s bladder, get over yourselves.
With the PAYE tax nonsense, bluster and deception coming from Gordon Taylor at the Professional Footballers’ Association, added to Richard Masters’ recent response, it just shows the utter contempt it seems the game holds the rest of us in.
Okay – I more than agree with the line of argument that already rich owners in the PL shouldn’t suddenly be absolved of their share of the cost, by arbitrarily cutting players wages to 20% to line their own pockets – given they were only asked to cut wages by 30% to begin with – there’s a bigger point at play, that the PL, PFA and players are conveniently ghosting.
In amongst the voluntary, with no % commitment, ‘#PlayersTogether’ initiative from players this week that simply changed the narrative of the headlines for a bit (and led to some bizarre praise from fans), well, I’ll let Robert Snodgrass say it best and in his own words.
Thanks @MattHancock it’s great to have your backing……. in future do your homework on what we do and who we are as people before coming for us. Over £1billion in tax and NI PAYMENTS doesn’t even earn RESPECT anymore. It’s not about us it’s about the real heroes…The NHS ❤️👌 https://t.co/V9MLomN7KO
— Robert snodgrass (@robsnodgrass7) April 9, 2020
When did paying tax become optional Snoddy and entitle you to ‘earn RESPECT’? Is that now the standard response? We pay tax, let us keep £60,000 odd a week, even though we can’t play and can’t train properly, or work on tactics – oh and let’s not forget we have no idea when football will return and it’s not our fault if a club goes out of business and to the wall – we can walk away for free and look for our next signing on bonus.
When did anyone actually say they didn’t pay tax by the way? When was this ever about tax, as opposed to doing the right thing, playing their part, and looking after their own industry? But whilst people talk about tax and footballers being unfairly singled out – they can avoid making a statement like this.
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We can’t take a pay cut to show solidarity and to pay other staff who let us exist properly. We can’t take a pay cut to take care of our own industry and our friends in that industry, and let it trickle down the pyramid so the taxpayer (fans and non-fans) don’t have to ultimately cough up more to rectify the hole we are now in – don’t look at us, we owe wider football nothing. You should love us, we’ve made a non-committal public relations promise to the NHS, despite the Treasury turning on the tap and money not being an issue.
We should just keep taking our entitled millions and how dare a nasty MP answer a fair question, just because we can say ‘what about the bankers’?
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At the moment normal taxpayers who are taking a real hit themselves are the real ‘stars’ deserving of ‘RESPECT’. Fundraising, donating to charities, coming out of retirement and volunteering – and the best top flight footballers can do, is shade the criticism at them instead of answering the salient point when it comes to why most believe they should be open to a cut at this moment in time.
Nobody is denying footballers pay tax. Nobody is denying they do a lot of good work in the Community, and nor that, they also don’t do a fair bit that they like to keep quiet and doesn’t get publicised. And I’m certainly not decrying their initiative – it will make a massive difference…in time when the public purse is tightened again and we move more to looking at the economy again. It’ll be needed then, absolutely. But it’s not needed now – it’s a fluffy headline, not the action that’s required.
This is a massive own goal and the players just haven’t thought it through. As you can imagine it’s been a massive topic of discussion on our Forum and most fans seem to be on the same page – we’re just thankful Aston Villa haven’t gone down this route and given the lack of leadership elsewhere, we hope our players show some and lead the way here with a sensible compromise.
If This Resets The Financial Bubble In The Game, Would You Welcome It?
We’ve seen Liverpool reverse their decision and apologise after criticism and pressure, and Spurs fans aren’t relenting when it comes to their opposition to Daniel Levy’s move – so for the first time in a long time, the growing anger is widespread and it doesn’t take much searching, in all corners of the game, to see that there is a growing sense that this could reset football for the benefit of all, and instead of being driven by ridiculous amounts of money – it finally returns to the fans, and not agents and broadcasters.
The longer players remain oblivious to that, don’t think what football could like look in the next five years and continue with the apparent ‘us and them’ attitude that has clearly come to the fore here…it may simply speed that reset up and players will be the last to get the joke when they realise their next offers have been cut by 90% and their signing on fee is a repayable deposit to help them find a home in a new area.
At least some seem to get it – so credit to the likes of Harlee Dean who recently confirmed he’d voluntarily taken a pay cut.
“We have been asked the question – I spoke to the CEO Dong and it’s not a collective decision, it’s an individual one so everybody is different, everybody has got their own personal situation. Some people can help and some people can’t help, it’s just the nature of the beast. Personally, for me, I am going to help because I can and I feel like we should. I am not going to go into the personals about it but it’s something along those lines and it’s just anything we can do to help the club out. For me, me not doing it and somebody in the club I know who works in admin or something like that, if they got laid off for the sake of me not doing it that doesn’t really sit well with me.”
It’s not that difficult to see the wider picture.
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