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Barcelona

Barcelona board may ask squad to accept further wage cuts

The already agreed 70% wage cut during the current state of alarm provoked by the Covid-19 pandemic may not be enough as the board of directors look for additional solutions.

Barcelona
FC Barcelona
GORKA LEIZADIARIO AS

As was anticipated, the negotiation process between the FC Barcelona board of directors and first team squad failed to secure total agreement on the temporary 70% salary cut as was initially outlined in last Monday's communique. In the original pact, the players were prepared to take an additional cut of 2% to ensure that club staff would not be faced with temporary redundancy. It now transpires that the club may look to the squad to take a further cut at a later point with the initial proposal failing to cover the current economic shortfall which has been provoked by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mundo Deportivo report how club president Josep Maria Bartomeu has requested that Barça executives prepare a full study on how the financial health of the Catalan club could potentially look when the impact of the virus has subsided. 

Income levels

It's anticipated that the study will be ready in May but already has to factor in a series of uncertainties....will games go ahead then, will they be played behind closed doors, will the Camp Nou tour recommence, will sales from replica kit and merchandise see an uplift and other questions relating to television income levels given that it's anticipated that a return to 'normality' is expected to be a gradual process.

Given these uncertain factors which hamper any future financial planning, the board deem that the current wage drop agreed by the players as insufficient.

With the current agreement, Barcelona are set to make saving of approximately 14 million from wages alone and many on the board feeling that this saving is insufficient and cite example of other clubs (Dortmund, Monchengladbach and Union Berlin who have taken major salary cuts during the pandemic) or Juventus who have managed to save approximately 90 million euro through salary reductions during this period.

The plan for the moment is to analyse the club's economic situation when the state of emergency is lifted and one of the scenarios that has not been ruled out by the board is an approach the first team squad and ask for a second salary drop which inevitably could further tensions between the squad and board after the friction caused by the first wave.