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Players - Take A Pay Cut

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16 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

As far as I know furlough is an alternative to redundancy so they will continue to have the same rights as before but will not be able to perform duties.

A furloughed player could not up and leave anymore than they now can.

However.... an employee has to consent to furlough. The only way an employer could force the hand is to threaten redundancy as an alternative.

I have no idea how easy it is to make a footballer redundant.

 

 

 

I'm not a lawyer, but I think that players contracts are far from normal employment contracts in any case. For example, I don't think you could require a four year notice period under ordinary employment law.

+ as you said, an employee has to consent to furlough - what if he doesn't? 

It's better that this issue is sorted by consent and hopefully, on a national scale.

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From all I have read a furloughed employee remains an employee with exactly the same rights and duties.  The only difference is that they cannot make money or provide services for the company (though there are some exemption for training...) and the government pays them 80% of normal pay.

Its academic anyway as the players won't sign up for this.

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Clubs have sacked footballers in the past but it is very rare as you essentially lose out on a huge amount of potential revenue from selling them. Even then it is usually for gross misconduct.

 

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1 minute ago, king canary said:

Clubs have sacked footballers in the past but it is very rare as you essentially lose out on a huge amount of potential revenue from selling them. Even then it is usually for gross misconduct.

 

They have, but they tend to sack those on big contracts and not playing first! Derby sacked injured 33 year old Richard Keogh, but not multi-million pound purchase Tom Lawrence and Mason Bennett!

https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/mel-morris-richard-keogh-derby-3511068

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6 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

From all I have read a furloughed employee remains an employee with exactly the same rights and duties.  The only difference is that they cannot make money or provide services for the company (though there are some exemption for training...) and the government pays them 80% of normal pay.

Its academic anyway as the players won't sign up for this.

It’s 80 per cent capped at 2,500 a month. So a footballer would go from £100k a week or whatever, down to about £600 a week.

But your point about employee consent first is a fair one. If the employer was unilaterally refusing to pay and the employee was therefore missing out on a minimum of twenty per cent of the salary it is contractually entitled to (in practice likely to be more than 20 per cent if paid over £30k per annum), then hard to argue the employer isn’t in breach of contract basically allowing the employee to leave. If the employee consents first though then yes, more difficult for the employee to then try and leave I suppose. 

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4 minutes ago, sonyc said:

Sacking and redundancy though are very different things.

Yes - why would a top club make a footballer redundant? Surely you’d try and sell them for a chunky sum.

You do of course fairly regularly see clubs and players terminate the contract by mutual consent. 

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I dont suppose any of us know enough about redundancy clauses in players' contracts to make this a worthwhile discussion. 

For the record I dont necessarily blame the players for any of this as we really dont know what they would and would not be content with. My annoyance is the speed with which we have done this and the fact that we appear not to have considered all other options before a government grant.  I hope we have and that this is all just PR of the most terrible kind (in which case maybe a saving can be identified....)

Edited by Barbe bleu

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8 minutes ago, Aggy said:

But your point about employee consent first is a fair one. If the employer was unilaterally refusing to pay and the employee was therefore missing out on a minimum of twenty per cent of the salary it is contractually entitled to (in practice likely to be more than 20 per cent if paid over £30k per annum), then hard to argue the employer isn’t in breach of contract basically allowing the employee to leave. If the employee consents first though then yes, more difficult for the employee to then try and leave I suppose. 

This is going to be a serious recession, you'd want to be in a really high demand job to risk quitting your job over a 20% pay cut at the minute.

I suppose those with very long service and enhanced redundancy might want to try calling their employers buff and asking for redundancy as an alternative, but I should imagine most are just going to have to take that 20% pay cut on the chin.

An employer I know bumped up the pay of employees on over £30k a year to ensure they still get 80% rather than £2500 a month. So for somebody on £50k a year, they actually get £40k a year (£3,333), which felt fair to me. 

The alternative is mass redundancies. 

Remember also that a lot of people are saving on commuting costs and coffee shops in this period, they can make their own coffee for 30p and don't have to fill up the tank. A reduction of 20% in salary unlikely to result in people actually being 20% worse off during these crazy times.

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9 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

I dont suppose any of us know enough about redundancy clauses in players' contracts to make this a worthwhile discussion. 

For the record I dont necessarily blame the players for any of this as we really dont know what they would and would not be content with. My annoyance is the speed with which we have done this and the fact that we appear not to have considered all other options before a government grant.  I hope we have and that this is all just PR of the most terrible kind (in which case maybe a saving can be identified....)

I think that is fair. The PR of furloughing employees so swiftly before the player wage issue was properly addressed isn't great. I'm skeptical about how much money we're actually saving through using this scheme and thus te necessity of it.

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3 minutes ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

Remember also that a lot of people are saving on commuting costs and coffee shops in this period, they can make their own coffee for 30p and don't have to fill up the tank. A reduction of 20% in salary unlikely to result in people actually being 20% worse off during these crazy times.

That is definitely true. I'm working from home and my only expense right now is my food shop and maybe the occasional treat like a video game or movie rental to keep myself entertained. No petrol, no drinks out, no coffees, no lunch at work all adds up.

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30 minutes ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

Remember also that a lot of people are saving on commuting costs and coffee shops in this period, they can make their own coffee for 30p and don't have to fill up the tank. A reduction of 20% in salary unlikely to result in people actually being 20% worse off during these crazy times.

You pay a lot less tax and NI for a start!

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23 minutes ago, king canary said:

That is definitely true. I'm working from home and my only expense right now is my food shop and maybe the occasional treat like a video game or movie rental to keep myself entertained. No petrol, no drinks out, no coffees, no lunch at work all adds up.

Mad thing is my son in law has stopped working as a builder, my daughter, mother of a one, five and eleven year old also furloughed from part time job. Both now receiving govt assistance. He was driving 50 miles each way 5 times a week, her job only a mile away. If you take out the petrol etc, they are actually better off.

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1 hour ago, Barbe bleu said:

My annoyance with this is the speed at which we went to the taxpayer.  At a time when 16 other clubs in the richest league in the world are holding back from pressing the button we went right ahead. 

Most other clubs seem to have committed to paying their matchday staff until the end of the season (stewards, catering staff etc), have we heard anything from the club about doing similar or have we stitched them up?

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55 minutes ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

This is going to be a serious recession, you'd want to be in a really high demand job to risk quitting your job over a 20% pay cut at the minute.

I suppose those with very long service and enhanced redundancy might want to try calling their employers buff and asking for redundancy as an alternative, but I should imagine most are just going to have to take that 20% pay cut on the chin.

An employer I know bumped up the pay of employees on over £30k a year to ensure they still get 80% rather than £2500 a month. So for somebody on £50k a year, they actually get £40k a year (£3,333), which felt fair to me. 

The alternative is mass redundancies. 

Remember also that a lot of people are saving on commuting costs and coffee shops in this period, they can make their own coffee for 30p and don't have to fill up the tank. A reduction of 20% in salary unlikely to result in people actually being 20% worse off during these crazy times.

Agreed re “normal people”. 

The point about footballers though is that they are in a really high demand job. If you were a Man Utd player and Man Utd tried to force you (against your will) to take a twenty per cent pay cut then why wouldn’t you try and engineer a move to Real Madrid or Bayern or somewhere that would pay you more? If players choose themselves to take a pay cut, fine. If every club in the world took the same measures, fine. But a club can’t try and force the issue unilaterally or it will lose its players.

And if the club furloughed players and topped up the salary, what’s the point? 97,500 instead of 100,000 probably won’t solve many problems. (Edit: Actually it’s not even 97,500 vs 100,000 if they’re on 100k a week. It would be c. 397,500 vs 400,000).

Edited by Aggy

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52 minutes ago, king canary said:

That is definitely true. I'm working from home and my only expense right now is my food shop and maybe the occasional treat like a video game or movie rental to keep myself entertained. No petrol, no drinks out, no coffees, no lunch at work all adds up.

I’ve managed to convince my girlfriend there’s also no point buying new clothes, shoes, bags etc. because there’s nowhere to wear them to anyway. Saving a fortune!

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You do not make people redundant. You make jobs redundant. And it is unlikely a club could make players redundant and then employ more further down the line. I believe the limit used to be six months.

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9 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

You do not make people redundant. You make jobs redundant. And it is unlikely a club could make players redundant and then employ more further down the line. I believe the limit used to be six months.

I am not sure that this is correct. 

My understanding is that a company can re-hire at anytime.  The problem generally is if they re-hire it is more difficult for them to claim that there was a genuine need to make positions redundant in the first place and so they risk an unfair dismissal claim.

I well imagine that the club could, in theory, lay almost everyone off and completely overhaul when we restart.   Let's hope they dont!

 

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I am not sure that this is correct. 

My understanding is that a company can re-hire at anytime.  The problem generally is if they re-hire it is more difficult for them to claim that there was a genuine need to make positions redundant in the first place and so they risk an unfair dismissal claim.

I well imagine that the club could, in theory, lay almost everyone off and completely overhaul when we restart.   Let's hope they dont!

The job has to be offered to the ex employee first. If that person says No the a different person can be interviewed but only if the new job differs from the old one. And with football it is hard to argue there is any difference.

I used the word limit not law because it is a grey area but has led to many court cases which normally find for the plaintiff.

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I don't understand why we discuss player redundancy. I can't forsee of any circumstances where we would even consider this. Non player redundancy is surely the issue - currently their jobs are redundant - we don't need as many ticketing and catering staff for example.

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32 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

 

The job has to be offered to the ex employee first. If that person says No the a different person can be interviewed but only if the new job differs from the old one. 

I think that you have a very benevolent view of employment law.

That said you are right that whatever an employer can do in theory if they lay off a worker and then bring in a replacement before the tribunal deadline expires they are asking for trouble.

Edited by Barbe bleu

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24 minutes ago, Badger said:

I don't understand why we discuss player redundancy. I can't forsee of any circumstances where we would even consider this. Non player redundancy is surely the issue - currently their jobs are redundant - we don't need as many ticketing and catering staff for example.

Yes, quite right. And if the non playing staff member doesn't agree to furlough would the club really go down the redundancy route? That would be terrible PR again....

...so they probably would.

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