Unlike any other Premier League clubs, Chelsea Football Club have decided that the first-team players will not take a single pay cut to help the financial wellbeing of the club during the COVID-19 crisis.
Instead, the players will focus on contributing their salaries towards charities including the NHS, per instructions from Chelsea board.
“At this time, the men’s first team will not be contributing towards the club financially and instead the board have directed the team to focus their efforts,” the statement said.
“We are grateful to the team for having played their role in assisting the club with community activities as well as all the charitable causes they have been supporting in their respective home countries and through the Players Together initiative supporting the NHS.”
Talks of pay cut is still ongoing however, as they are being represented by captain Cesar Azpilicueta.
The players are willing to take a cut lower than the figure of 10%, but the club say there has been no agreement in place.
Chelsea also refused to make a mistake of using the government’s job retention scheme.
“We are not planning any general redundancies or furloughs for our full-time staff who are continuing to be paid 100% of their current wages,” the statement continued.
“We are continuing our current level of financial and other support to our professional women players and also to our women’s academy programmes.”
Chelsea have also confirmed that they will credit season ticket holders for any games played behind closed doors for the remainder of the season and reimburse those who had booked non-refundable travel to the postponed Champions League tie at Bayern Munich last month.