In an interesting development, PFA deputy Bobby Barnes is of the opinion that Premier League players are now being portrayed to look like the ‘anti-Christ’ due to their protracted wage-deferral stand-off.
Players are now bombarded with increasingly growing criticism for refusing to take temporary pay cuts in responding to the coronavirus pandemic, as the PFA continues to take a resolute stand in telling players to decline acceptance of the current terms being put forward.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock has publicly lobbied for stars to do their bit and ‘play their part’ with Julian Knight, the chairman of the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) committee, being another critic voicing his disdain and disapproval of the players’ unyielding stance.
The Premier League is still in a standoff bartering with players and is reported to have produced a proposal of 30 per cent reductions and deferrals during the period of the coronavirus pandemic in a conference call on Saturday.
It is understood that the Premier League have presented the scenarios, with the worst-case being that the league cannot be resumed, which would mean having to pay back £762m to broadcasters. This is where a 30 per cent wage cut would be most handy to cover most of that.
Barnes however says he is disinclined to see top stars now being viewed as ‘the anti-Christ’ for failing to accept cuts.
‘I don’t want players to be demonised,’ Barnes told the Times.
‘There are much higher paid sportsmen. Our players pale into insignificance when you talk about baseball, NFL, basketball. It’s as if our players are off buying gold Rolls-Royces every day. They’re not.
‘Players are seen as the anti-Christ because they happen to be well-paid young men. They’re being portrayed as having no social conscience whatsoever and that’s grossly unfair.’
Hancock, whose comments were met with criticism from Match of the Day host Gary Lineker and former Manchester United pair Wayne Rooney and Gary Neville, dug into Premier League players in a government press conference urging them to take a look at the ‘sacrifices’ made by others.
He said: ‘Given the sacrifices that many people are making, including some of my colleagues in the NHS who have made the ultimate sacrifice of going into work and have caught the disease and have sadly died, I think the first thing that footballers can do is make a contribution, take a pay cut and play their part.’
Knight, a Conservative Party lawmaker, has linked players’ wages to the welfare of health care workers, saying that “the first thing Premier League footballers can do is make a contribution, take a pay cut, and play their part,” given the “sacrifices” being made by front-line workers in the health service.
This is where the bone of contention lies as the players still do not see the link between those two things quite as clearly. They have clarified their position that they indeed are most desirous of helping, but are somehow doubtful if doing so with a pay cut instead of via direct donations might simply save money for their team owners, rather than benefiting the health service. Furthermore, their salaries are subject to taxation and any cut would mean a reduction of income for the treasury, and ultimately, the NHS.
A group of athletes, led by the Liverpool captain, Jordan Henderson, had already been discussing setting up a charitable fund to help the National Health Service even before the pandemic began to take a turn for the worse. Others, including the Manchester United striker Marcus Rashford, had started private initiatives to help provide meals to underprivileged children.
In the latest development, a joint statement posted on social media by more than 150 Premier League players, the players announced their collaboration to create a voluntary initiative and finally kicked off their #PlayersTogether project fight COVID-19 in collaboration with NHS Charities Together (NHSCT) which has been set up primarily to generate funds for the NHS frontline workers.
Taking a step back to review in deeper perspective the dichotomy of the whole conundrum, one wonders if it is the clubs, and not the players, who should be made to look like the diabolical ‘Anti-Christs’.
As it is, the players themselves had already begun questioning if taking pay cuts would mean setting a dangerous precedent for the future where their employers are concerned.