Definition Of Non- Match Day Staff

In another thread, EB Hornet refers to the issue of payment of so-called non-match day staff (NMDS), although replies to his post generally stick to his second point about ending the season.
I’m intrigued by the definition of NMDS. I get that this group does not include players, whose contracts seem to have been drafted to include escape clauses to obviate any reduction in income, howsoever caused. Surprise, surprise.
Solutions for their own contributions have consequently been put on hold awaiting a negotiated, across-the-board approach, to protect any club going out on a limb and risking player exits. Much of the talk surrounding this element is of wage deferral, in other words no long term loss of income. Set against the possibility of actual cuts amongst the NMDS, this seems pretty grotesque in itself.
Whilst the likes of Newcastle and Spurs have wasted no time in putting their filthy hands on the taxpayer’s 80% contribution, others have guaranteed they will keep funding wages, and a third group, including us, have delayed making an announcement. My expectation is that we will do the right thing, when push comes to shove.
What puzzles me is what constitutes NMDS? Why on earth, for instance, would directors/ executives (with a few exceptions in the latter category) qualify? It seems a meaningless and usefully amorphous term; a convenient euphemism for the big noises to hide behind.
Interested to hear other thoughts.

 

I work at a football club, and non-matchday staff means everyone but the first team and the first team coaches at the club i'm at. The club I work at is still paying us but i'd be surprised if it doesn't happen soon. It's pretty sickening to think that there are people earning 5x my yearly wage in a week, and they're continuing to be paid, when their salary over two weeks could probably pay for my entire department's wages for a year.

 

It's just whoever is earning close enough to the government's 80% wage pay furloughing scheme that it makes sense for clubs/companies to take advantage of the free money by using it.

 

When reading about Spurs, they made the point that this included Levy. Let’s be honest, it’s not really a big deal for him. But to those who work in the ticket office, club shop, canteen etc it could be their main income. As you say, the thought they will now struggle whilst the players keep full pay is a bit sickening.

Others have mentioned that large wages often mean large mortgages etc, but I fail to believe they need every penny. The players should pay the wages of the lowest earners and keep them in jobs, the decent thing to do for people who work in their club and if that saves the country a bit of money (even as a token gesture) then even better.

As I said in the other thread, Barcelona players have taken a 75% pay cut and making sure all non playing staff receive their wages. Good on them.

 

I know. It's a clear taking advantage of the Gov't money. I know it's virtually impossible to police, but no company that continues to pay people millions a year should be allowed to furlough their other staff.

 

Would you rather they lost their jobs?

As a side-note, perhaps someone on here has an idea - how easy or difficult is it for clubs to terminate their players' contracts for financial/non-footballing reasons? I suspect it is incredibly difficult or even impossible.

 

I'd rather they took a pay cut - I wouldn't even care if we all got 20% pay cuts as long as everyone was in the same boat.

 

Sure, though there isn't any government legislation that makes it straightforward, it is something which has to be negotiated between the clubs and players.

Clubs may not want to do it with all players either if it means they may risk losing some of them.

 

Well maybe players want to turn a blind eye and maybe football clubs don't want to upset their main assets. But at times like this there are certainly easy ways around any of the legal stuff. As already said Barcelona players are taking a 70% (I said 75 last time but have checked this) pay cut throughout these times. If you were Harry Kane and reading that non playing staff were taking a hit, wouldn't you contact all the squad and say "hey, let's take a 20% pay cut and make sure these guys get their wages". Then contact the club and say "we all agree to this, write up the temporary contracts and get it done". Or just pay 20% of their money straight back to the club on the understanding the non playing staff get paid. When the players go back to training and go and get their food cooked for them, hope they can't look the canteen staff in the eye.

 

This will happen up and down the country, to an extent you can’t blame some for taking advantage, it’s more the moral issue at play. I’ve a friend who works for a large company who overall are doing very well, they’ve not been hit by this situation and in fact are benefitting from it. They’ve decided to furlough half the staff and claim the benefit the funds anyway. Do they need to do it? Absolutely not, they’re doing it because they can. The question is do spurs need to do it? In my opinion they absolutely do not. Their last stated profit was £68m. Sure they’ll be taking a hit missing match day revenue but at this stage they do not need to be laying staff off, so they do not need to be furloughing them yet either.

 

The PFA have so far rejected calls for wage deferrals:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/f...FA-chief-Gordon-Taylor-fight-players-pay.html

There'll be another meeting today between the PL, FL, and PFA today to discuss such a thing, though the PFA seem to remain sceptical:

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/52104200

There probably won't be many players eager to go against the view of the PFA.

 

Gordon Taylor is seven asterisks followed by four.

 

I can see an issue with a one size fits all policy. Joe Bloggs playing for Burton Albion on £750 a week might struggle with a pay cut. Even at our own club, some of the younger non 1st team players may need the money for their rent and food etc. But the well paid players need to step up, even if it's to put pressure on the PFA and say let us do our own thing with our own clubs so the tea lady and the cleaners get their pay.

 

Agreed - total package £2m pa - the highest paid trade union official in the world

 

The PFA have stated that if clubs have players that defer wages, then the players are still contractually obliged to those wages and they will need to be paid to the players at a set time. Otherwise the club in question is placed under a transfer embargo.

Clubs won’t be allowed to go spending money when they still owe money to existing staff. So as much as I think clubs and players that can afford it should be looking into deferring wages, it’s not as cut and dried as just doing it and it not being an issue.

It would be better (if allowed) that players are paid as normal and then it’s worked out between the squad that they will take care of the wages of those further down the clubs wage bill.

Barcelona getting their players to take a 75% wage cut is all well and good - but they will be liable for paying that 75% back to the players at some point when this is over. That’s A LOT of money they will need to find that won’t be knocking around in their bank.

 

Deferment as a concept is to my mind totally unacceptable in this situation. What do top level players actually lose out of it, at a time when people lower down the food chain at clubs are having to make real sacrifices? A chance to participate in another questionable tax avoidance scheme, perhaps?
If the PFA had an ounce of common decency, they would be strongly recommending that all players down to a certain level of income, including image rights and other bolt-ons, be prepared to donate money to the pot at a realistic level. Not hiding behind convenient contract wording.
I truly wonder how Gordon Taylor can look himself in the mirror.

 

I imagine he employs a valet to hold the mirror up for him and another to turn his head.

 

Remember the words of one of footballs greats. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51896488

"Wayne Rooney says the government and football authorities have treated footballers as "guinea pigs" during the coronavirus outbreak."
"For players, staff and their families it has been a worrying week," he said.
"I think a lot of footballers were wondering, 'Is it something to do with money being involved in this?'

 

Spot on.

 

Taylor is basically holding clubs to ransom, a bit short sighted, when players don’t get the Huge contracts in the future, because the money isn’t there, Taylor shouldn’t be surprised!

 

The problem is you can't furlough a player, not because of the wages, they'd get 2.5k a week and tough ****. The reason you can't furlough a player worth 20m is they have the option of being laid off and being released from contract by not accepting.

 

People will moan about the furloughing of non match staff and players not giving up their salaries but as soon as the league starts up again it'll soon be forgotten. The club's know that and the players know that.

Wouldn't be surprised to see Watford do it if this was to go on for a longer than predicted period of time.

 

They need to take pay cut and none of this deferral rubbish. Ok yes, they might have mortgages to pay etc. But you literally can’t spend money at the moment other than on food, that’s it. Nobody needs to or can spend money on cars, clothes, holidays etc at the moment. Most premier league players could take a 50% pay cut and still be fine and have their bills covered. If their mortgage is more than 50% of their salary then all that means is that the term of their mortgage is quite short, another privilege of being an overpaid footballer, the ability to clear your mortgage in less than 25/30 years like us normal folk. Call your mortgage provider and take advantage of the payment holiday option that we’ve all got, or get the term extended temporarily. I don’t expect them to take a 50% pay cut, but there is absolutely no reason why they couldn’t.

 

Don’t know much about it but would force majeure cover it? You couldn’t get much more unforeseen than this. Now obviously at the moment it wouldn’t be in the clubs interest to go down this route for most players, as they wouldn’t want to lose their value over the saving of paying their wages. And I guess you’d be on shakey ground if you tried to exercise it with some players and not others.

 

It’s really a question of a lot of worms in a lot of cans!

 

When you say there is absolutely no reason they can’t, does that mean you have an idea of the overheads that players currently have?

Yes I think players should be looking to give back some of their wages. But I doubt it can be a unilateral percentage across the board at clubs without it becoming a deferral - which clubs will want to avoid because the money will still be owed eventually. So when it becomes different percentages for different players etc etc, and bonuses etc are considered, I bet it’s not as easy as just sorting out in a quick phone call.

Some footballers can be out of touch with reality - but fundamentally they are still human and are used to seeing thousands of working class people cheer them on every weekend. The fact that it’s taking some time to put all this together only leads me to think that it’s harder than we recognise. I’m sure it’ll happen and I don’t think people should take the fact that it’s taking a while as a sign that players and clubs don’t want to do something.

I expect most clubs will enter into some sort of agreement with their players AND furlough staff. It’s just that doing those in the wrong order like Spurs, Bournemouth etc comes across poorly. Get the deal with the players across the line and then furlough.

 

I’m sure their outgoings are very significant, but likewise I’m sure their disposable income is quite high as well and they don’t actually really need it right now. I’m not suggesting it’s easy and the further down the chain you go the more of an issue it will be for certain players who don’t earn that well relative to the top earners, but for the vast majority of premier league players it won’t be an issue. Either way I think they should from a moral perspective agree to some sort of cut rather than a deferral. A deferral really isn’t any sort of sacrifice at all.

 

Oh absolutely they should agree to something. I just don’t think it’s as easy as bluntly stating an arbitrary percentage across the board and it being done in 24hrs, that’s all. I suspect conversations have been going on all week to that end.

I just think we need to be balanced a bit more and recognise that players are humans as well and will have things they spend out on that we don’t even know about. I’m not remotely saying they need every penny of the 50k p/w they get (less tax) but they likely have many of the same expenses we do - but relatively higher.

In summation. Yes, they should help in a agreed, defined way as soon as recognisably possible. But as coherent as Matt Hancock was yesterday (for once), I found it a bit distasteful that he singled out PL footballers to ‘give back’ - why not club owners?! Why not the numerous billionaires the country has?

 

Footballers only need to take a cut in wages if the club is skint and laying off other staff. Why would Aguero agree to lose 100k a week when some rich gazillionaire arab is paying the wages?

What footballers should be doing is donating to covid 19 charities or in the local community.

The issue at the moment is the likes of Mike Ashley taking advantage of furlough scheme to avoid paying workforce out of his own pocket. Yet at the same time paying millions on footballer wages.

 

One of the problems of Mike Ashley and Tim Martin (Wetherspoons) is that they have a captive market with their businesses. They know that if they can survive the lockdown, they can treat their staff as they wish. As they will have people ready to take any jobs they offer when it’s over and people ready to walk in and buy their goods.

Sad but true. They will of course take a hit. And they will get a few folk who won’t return to their businesses. But when you have to go and get your son some new football boots or your work colleagues ask you for a Friday night post-work beer, they know people will hold their nose and shop/drink there. Hence their brevity in furloughing staff.

 

There's some sense in this.

I noticed Hancock trying to deflect some blame and guilt towards footballers in his press conference yesterday, but in the same way that footballers' pay doesn't necessarily mean that the Government couldn't have pay more in to the NHS, footballers' pay also doesn't necessarily mean that clubs are unable to still pay their non-playing staff.

Andros Townsend makes some reasonable points here:

https://www.skysports.com/football/...-winger-unhappy-with-treatment-of-footballers

 

I agree with a lot of what you've said, but clubs that both furlough staff and get players to take a pay cut are saving money twice.

It'll be pretty difficult to know exactly how much would be reasonable for clubs to cut their staff expenses by during this period. As you say there is also the issue of the clubs' owners' finances to consider. Players being forced in to a unilateral agreement when they don't know the full picture might end up meaning them unnecessarily losing out to the benefit of the clubs' owners.

Also, as you allude to, not all players will be in the same boat - someone like Kane would probably have plenty in the bank, but younger pros might not have as much to spare even in spite of their salaries. Ludicrous salaries haven't prevented many footballers over the years from mismanaging their own personal finances to the point where they've gone bankrupt either.

 

Also, just read that last season footballers contributed £3.3b alone in tax. Enough to fund 25% of the England & Wales police force for a year.

It’s easy for the public to make claims about how much money they should give up. But they have already contributed far more than the average man or woman. That’s not to say they can’t do more in their privileged positions but does go to show it’s not as easy as just saying every players should give up 30%-50% etc etc

 

Ahhhh, but who pays their wages with their ticket purchases and merchandise buying?

Obviously that’s rubbish, because the money all comes from broadcasters, but in before somebody else comes out with it and they actually mean it.

 

Yes, true, but whose money are the broadcasters recycling?

 

Rupert Murdoch’s.