Furloughing staff

[nailsy]

That's a good point, but this is all getting caught up in words on paperwork when, in the real world, where they apparently don't live on a full time basis, facts are facts and the world is in a bind. If it was declared football wasn't going to restart for months more, that the club they are contracted to is going to fold, the league they compete in's main sponsor goes broke or anything like that - what they expect the world to do, pick up that enormous pay packet while they don't do what they're being paid for?

Musicians and actors are very similar to footballers in as much as they entertain crowds and, right now, not a single musician or actor can make a penny - Their entire industry is, right now, dead and they get to lump in with everyone else because their skill, their career right now isn't happening. Why are footballers so different? Is it just because they have several more zeroes arrive in their account each month?

It makes, literally no sense. The levels of respect that I had for footballers is evaporating rapidly and when people would gripe over their pay, I used to argue that - it's a short, precarious career, that could be ended with one errant boot. Well here's a big fucking virus smothered boot... pull your weight.

I totally agree with what you're saying, but furloughing non playing staff has to be separated from whatever action is taken in regards to the players. They should definitely be taking a wage cut at the moment, but I do have sympathy with the players for the way they've been scapegoated as it seems that many of them were trying to sort things out themselves in the background. The PFA should have acted much faster once the league was suspended. The clubs could've been up front with the players about what their intentions were and why they needed them to take a pay cut.

I'd be interested to hear what people think about what's going on at Rangers. The players, directors and coaching team (including Gerrard) are all taking a three month payment deferral so that the rest of the staff can continue to be paid. It sounds like they'll still be paid later so they aren't actually taking a financial hit over all, but are still doing their bit to help.

Rangers players and manager to defer wages

Rangers manager Steven Gerrard, his staff, the first-team squad and executives have volunteered to defer their salaries for three months to help the club combat football's shutdown.

www.bbc.com

With Liverpool announcing on Monday that they have reversed their decision to furlough a section of their non-playing staff, where does that leave Tottenham?
Spurs became the second Premier League club after Newcastle to make use of the government’s furlough scheme last week, at the same time that they announced that all non-playing staff were taking a 20 per cent pay reduction.
Of Spurs’ 550 non-playing staff, around 40 per cent are being placed on furlough, which means the UK government paying 80 per cent of their wages up to £2,500 per month. Those that have been furloughed are members of staff who can’t do their job from home — like, for instance, workers at the currently-closed club shop.
Taking government money to pay staff has caused consternation among supporters and the wider football community, especially as the announcement was made on the same day annual accounts for the year up until June 30, 2019, showed chairman Daniel Levy taking home a £7 million salary and Spurs posting pre-tax profits of £87.4 million (a Premier League high).
After Liverpool’s announcement on Monday night, the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters’ Trust (THST) urged the club to “pause and rethink. We are now saying it clearly and in public — do not further damage the Club’s reputation, listen to your fans.”
Tottenham’s stance remains as it was when they first revealed the wage cuts and furlough plans: “We shall continue to review this position.” Staff will not be paid for April until the end of the month, so there is still plenty of time for the situation to change before they have received their first reduced wage packet.
How then did it get to this point? Why has a club seemingly in such a strong financial position taken the stance they have and as yet not reversed it?
The picture is more complicated than the one painted by those annual results, which, almost a year out of date, already feel as though they are from another lifetime.
The decision taken by Levy last week was not one that was universally popular at the club. Some opposed it entirely, others felt it would be sensible to at least hold fire on such a drastic step.
Levy was unmoved though and pressed on. He is not a man too bothered by public perception and his sole focus is doing whatever he feels is needed to keep the club surviving and sustainable. Announcing the decision on March 31 would also give staff who were having their wages reduced the maximum notice ahead of their next payday on April 30.
Principally, Levy made the decision because he is nervous about what lies ahead for Tottenham in light of the COVID-19 crisis. Every club faces a potentially terrifying future but Spurs’ situation is made more acute by their new £1 billion stadium.
Tottenham used up their cash reserves on the stadium, without taking public money, and have not had long enough to build them back up again. With no income for at least the next couple of months — bar a relatively meagre amount from online retail — Levy feels he must strip every cost he can out of the business bar letting staff go, which remains the last resort.
The huge investment in the stadium was always deemed worthwhile because of what Spurs would get back in return. But not only was that predicated on hosting regular Tottenham games — the idea was that income would also be generated from concerts and events from other sports like boxing and rugby. All of those have been cancelled for the next few months, and alongside no match-day income (Spurs’ match-day revenue is bettered only by Manchester United in the Premier League), that’s wiped tens of millions off the balance sheet.
The absence of other forecasted sources of revenue like season ticket renewals has been similarly damaging. And should the doomsday scenario occur and the season be voided, then Spurs would also face having to refund their remaining five home games — of which three are against Arsenal, West Ham and Manchester United, three of the biggest games of the season (a fee that would comfortably surpass £15,000,000) — not to mention missing out on their chunk of the £762 million Premier League TV deal.
Concerns like these are universal for Premier League sides but it is the context of the new stadium that makes Spurs feel they are especially acute for them — since unlike West Ham and Manchester City, the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was built using private rather than public money and must be repaid.
We explained last week that Tottenham managed to refinance their construction borrowings on a good long-term rate and so are not in immediate financial danger. The fear is that with income drying up, those debts suddenly look a lot more daunting.
Time will tell whether he has been prudent or paranoid, but Levy was quick to recognise the havoc that the current global pandemic would wreak on football. The Athletic understands that soon after the Premier League was halted in mid-March, Levy was already fearing the worst. He viewed player pay cuts as being an inevitable necessity to make up for the shortfall in revenues like television money and anticipated the COVID-19 crisis leaving a number of clubs insolvent.
Levy is said to have feared the Premier League might not return until much later this year or even beyond, and so decided that decisive action was necessary. Again, we will only know how accurate these fears were over the coming months while the actions of other Premier League clubs will illustrate how much of an outlier Spurs’ were in reducing wages.
The picture with regards to player wage cuts will also sharpen into focus over the next few days but that was another intention of last week’s furloughing announcement. In a thinly-veiled message to all Premier League players, not just Tottenham ones, Levy wrote: “We hope the current discussions between the Premier League, PFA and LMA will result in players and coaches doing their bit for the football eco system.”
The PFA and Premier League have subsequently been locked in discussions over what a wage-cut looks like for the players. Negotiations remain ongoing and should an agreement be reached, then Levy will consider the hit his reputation took worth it to accelerate the process. This ties in again to the fact that his only consideration is keeping Spurs surviving and sustainable.
There may though be further collateral damage. The Tottenham players only found out about the furloughing decision when it was announced publicly. Some were left disappointed on behalf of the colleagues taking a pay-cut and fearful that they themselves were being targeted, The Athletic understands. On Monday, Jan Vertonghen retweeted confirmation of Liverpool’s decision to reverse their furloughing policy — only to quickly delete it.
As has been reported, there has been widespread frustration among footballers about the way public figures have caricatured them as selfish and money-grabbing while demanding that they take wage cuts.
Tottenham’s decision to furlough non-playing staff could also do damage in other ways. The absence of match-day staff is unlikely to affect results on the pitch but losing recruitment staff might. Senior staff like chief scout Steve Hitchen continue to work on reduced wages but other members of the recruitment team have been placed on furlough. Spurs feel they have already identified their summer targets and so can absorb the temporary losses but there are those that fear they might lose ground to rivals over the longer term. Again, the coming months and possibly even years will be telling.
In some respects, the players and many of those running the clubs are in agreement. Both feel that individuals and businesses that earn more than players and football clubs have been the subject of far less financial censure.
A club like Spurs will always be the subject of greater scrutiny though, since there is such an emotional investment made by supporters and a yearning for them to do the “right” thing. This was also the case with Liverpool and is a major reason why they decided to u-turn on their original decision.
Spurs will also always be a lightning rod for as long as they are owned by billionaire Joe Lewis, who is worth in excess of £4 billion and lives as a tax exile in the Bahamas. The optics of taking government money while Lewis continues not to put his own cash into the club are awful. Tottenham will feel they have always been self-sufficient and after not taking public money for the stadium,, build are entitled to do so now in a time of unprecedented hardship.
As with every decision they have made, it is the prerogative of every supporter and observer to decide whether they think it has merit.

Great article.

 

[Doctor Dinkey]

Joe Lewis is a tax exile worth £4billion.
While the club is sponging off public funds for a few mil to cover the wages of people, who on the whole, don't earn very much.
We are effectively subsidising Joe Lewis' fortune.
Fuck 'em.

 

[1882andallthat]

not having a go at you directly but when news broke about both clubs furloughing their staff, it was announced that 550 nonplaying staff have been furloughed by Spurs (don't know the exact amount actually under the government scheme). when news broke of 200 for Liverpool, 1st it was highlighted well at least they are paying the 20%. now I'm not being funny but people having a moan about us 1, not changing like Liverpool have, or 2, at least not paying the 20% need to note the bolded in this post and notice we are near on talking about treble the amount of staff

with a lot of the staff at a guess, the hourly rates in London are usually more than up north. The thing is no one knows how long this will go on for, and if this season never resumes what actual cost will hit us let alone if it goes on a lot longer. I was always told PREVENTION is better than CURE. if this goes on for 3-4 months you won't see clubs using the furlough they will be making redundancies

I'd like to ask all of those on here trying in various different ways to justify or defend Daniel Levy's decision to furlough 550 non playing staff whilst also being the only PL club not to top up the 20% shortfall the following question, and I would hope they are able to answer this question honestly and objectively.
So here's the question - If Arsenal's board had taken exactly the same measures as Daniel Levy has taken, and Spurs had not opted into furloughing staff in the way they have, would you all be so keen to defend their position or justify it, or would you be highly critical of their decision and actions ? (As I said, please try to be honest and objective)

 

[nailsy]

Joe Lewis is a tax exile worth £4billion.
While the club is sponging off public funds for a few mil to cover the wages of people, who on the whole, don't earn very much.
We are effectively subsidising Joe Lewis' fortune.
Fuck 'em.

Can't disagree with thinking Lewis should be putting the money in to help the workers. If he's not willing to do it though it does force a decision on those who are actually working at the club.

 

[nailsy]

I'd like to ask all of those on here trying in various different ways to justify or defend Daniel Levy's decision to furlough 550 non playing staff whilst also being the only PL club the following question, and I would hope they are able to answer the this question honestly and objectively.
So here's the question - If Arsenal's board taken exactly the same measures as Daniel Levy has taken, and Spurs had not opted into furloughing staff in the way they have, would you all be so keen to defend their position or justify it, or would you be highly critical of their decision and actions ? (As I said, please try to be honest and objective)

You have to look at every clubs finances in order to answer that. If they needed to do it to survive I wouldn't have a problem with it.
Actually I'd probably have a problem with West Ham due to the stadium funding.

Let me ask you this, How quickly are our cash reserves going to be depleted with our current income and outgoings and with any payments that we have to refund in the next few months?

 

[Dinghy]

I'd like to ask all of those on here trying in various different ways to justify or defend Daniel Levy's decision to furlough 550 non playing staff whilst also being the only PL club not to top up the 20% shortfall the following question, and I would hope they are able to answer this question honestly and objectively.
So here's the question - If Arsenal's board had taken exactly the same measures as Daniel Levy has taken, and Spurs had not opted into furloughing staff in the way they have, would you all be so keen to defend their position or justify it, or would you be highly critical of their decision and actions ? (As I said, please try to be honest and objective)

Firstly, 550 haven't been furloughed.
Secondly, I would like to see what any companies finances are like, in fact, more importantly I'd like to know what their cash flow is like before I draw any moral conclusions on anyone. Unless anyone has seen the true books of any company/football club they really can't/shouldn't comment.

 

[thekneaf]

I'd like to ask all of those on here trying in various different ways to justify or defend Daniel Levy's decision to furlough 550 non playing staff whilst also being the only PL club not to top up the 20% shortfall the following question, and I would hope they are able to answer this question honestly and objectively.
So here's the question - If Arsenal's board had taken exactly the same measures as Daniel Levy has taken, and Spurs had not opted into furloughing staff in the way they have, would you all be so keen to defend their position or justify it, or would you be highly critical of their decision and actions ? (As I said, please try to be honest and objective)

Not disagreeing with you're ultimate point, but we need to get the facts clear. We haven't furloughed 550 non playing staff. All 550 non playing staff, including levy, have taken a 20% salary reduction. Reports are around 220 staff that can't work from home have been furloughed.

 

[Trotter]

Hearing through a good authority.

Spurs are trying to negotiate with the players in respect of wages.
The players won't entertain anything, until the club reverse their decision to furlough staff and drop non-playing staff wages.

 

[1882andallthat]

You have to look at every clubs finances in order to answer that. If they needed to do it to survive I wouldn't have a problem with it.
Actually I'd probably have a problem with West Ham due to the stadium funding.

Let me ask you this, How quickly are our cash reserves going to be depleted with our current income and outgoings and with any payments that we have to refund in the next few months?

Whilst I don't know the exact financial position of every football club, instinctively I am making a reasoned judgement call that there are many clubs who are in a far worse financial decision than ours who have not taken the decision to furlough non playing staff and not top up their wages by 20%. I could be wrong and I would hold up my hands and admit it if that were the case. I think on the balance of probabilities I'm not, and there are many who are far worse off, which is why I feel distinctly uncomfortable at seeing our club linked with actions similar Mike Ashley's in being almost first in the queue behind him in reaching for the begging bowl in these circumstances, being in the same ballpark as his moral compass just doesn't sit right with me.

 

[thekneaf]

And for those bringing Joe Lewis into this, I hope the guy is quaking. Tax havens are an abomination, as is tax avoidance. My silver lining in all this is a global consensus that they help no one apart from 0.001%. Governments should be digging into those siloed cash reserves to fund the response. Billionaires and tax is much bigger than Spurs, it's the rot in society.

 

[thekneaf]

Hearing through a good authority.

Spurs are trying to negotiate with the players in respect of wages.
The players won't entertain anything, until the club reverse their decision to furlough staff and drop non-playing staff wages.

Which I think may literally have been the negotiation Levy was intending to have. Happy to look bad. Players look like angels, no one that needs the money left out of pocket.

 

[1882andallthat]

Hearing through a good authority.

Spurs are trying to negotiate with the players in respect of wages.
The players won't entertain anything, until the club reverse their decision to furlough staff and drop non-playing staff wages.

If the players are taking this position then I'm

Firstly, 550 haven't been furloughed.
Secondly, I would like to see what any companies finances are like, in fact, more importantly I'd like to know what their cash flow is like before I draw any moral conclusions on anyone. Unless anyone has seen the true books of any company/football club they really can't/shouldn't comment.

Whether it's 550 or lower I stand corrected, but the point is not the number is the decision to do it in the first place. I've already responded elsewhere, and I could be wrong but on the balance of probabilities I'm finding it difficult to believe that we are one of the most unhealthiest clubs financially in PL or in English football in terms of financial positions and cashflow to require this type of government bailout and be almost first in the queue for it along with Mike Adhley.

 

[nailsy]

Whilst I don't know the exact financial position of every football club, instinctively I am making a reasoned judgement call that there are many clubs who are in a far worse financial decision than ours who have not taken the decision to furlough non playing staff and not top up their wages by 20%. I could be wrong and I would hold up my hands and admit it if that were the case. I think on the balance of probabilities I'm not, and there are many who are far worse off, which is why I feel distinctly uncomfortable at seeing our club linked with actions similar Mike Ashley's in being almost first in the queue behind him in reaching for the begging bowl in these circumstances, being in the same ballpark as his moral compass just doesn't sit right with me.

I really don't know which is why I'm not going to knock him for this decision. We may have record profits, but that could soon turn to record losses very quickly in this situation. Has any other club in world football spent more money than we have in the last few years?

 

[rossdapep]

It's not the staffs fault we are 600mil in debt.

True but if it wasn't for the new stadium around about 100 people wouldn't have a job.

 

[Dinghy]

I really don't know which is why I'm not going to knock him for this decision. We may have record profits, but that could soon turn to record losses very quickly in this situation. Has any other club in world football spent more money than we have in the last few years?

As I said above, it's not even about profits, it's about cash flow.
It's all well and good having value on paper but having cold hard cash in reserves to make payroll is another thing.

 

[rossdapep]

Levy, being Levy, would have made this decision from a purely business 'risk adverse' decision.

It's like when he refuses to fork out another 5m for a player.

Remember, we're not just paying stadium debt. We owe money to Betis, Lyon and many others.

And I'm gonna call it now. Other clubs are adament they won't furlough but wait until we reach June with no sign of a return. Loads will realise that it's a necessity.

 

[BringBack_leGin]

Hearing through a good authority.

Spurs are trying to negotiate with the players in respect of wages.
The players won't entertain anything, until the club reverse their decision to furlough staff and drop non-playing staff wages.

MK Yid gets his first ever ITK at a time that it completely suits the argument he’s entrenched in and has been for roughly a week with several different posters shock!

I assume you’ve cleared your source with the mods ?

 

[Chirpystheman]

It's not the staffs fault we are 600mil in debt.

I know but i thought the complaint was a cash rich football club was using government scheme? So the business (as that what it is) is in massive debt and is maintaining its staff get at least 80%. Yes they should be topping up the wage. Those still working have also taken a 20% paycut so they are all in same position wage drop wise. My point regarding the debt is you cant compare us to other clubs as they dont have the debt and also how many of them have as big a net spend as we do. We dod not foresee this coming. Let see what happens on June 1st. Whether these people lose their jobs or are back being paid and lets see the financial results next season and see how big the impact really was. Never knew so many accountants and people with access to Tottenham's balance sheet were on these forums to know what the club can afford to pay etc.

 

[Doctor Dinkey]

And for those bringing Joe Lewis into this, I hope the guy is quaking. Tax havens are an abomination, as is tax avoidance. My silver lining in all this is a global consensus that they help no one apart from 0.001%. Governments should be digging into those siloed cash reserves to fund the response. Billionaires and tax is much bigger than Spurs, it's the rot in society.

Id love to see him pursued to the ends of the earth for his billions and all his yachts flogged off.

 

[Lighty64]

I'd like to ask all of those on here trying in various different ways to justify or defend Daniel Levy's decision to furlough 550 non playing staff whilst also being the only PL club not to top up the 20% shortfall the following question, and I would hope they are able to answer this question honestly and objectively.
So here's the question - If Arsenal's board had taken exactly the same measures as Daniel Levy has taken, and Spurs had not opted into furloughing staff in the way they have, would you all be so keen to defend their position or justify it, or would you be highly critical of their decision and actions ? (As I said, please try to be honest and objective)

to be honest none of us know exactly when this will finish, or what position each and every club’s financial position is. Yes we made a 68m profit but that wasn’t up April. They were our figures for last season.

does anyone know what the real cost will be if they void the season? Are people forgetting we spent 161m over the 2 windows?

by the end of the month if no date is set for a restart who knows how many clubs will furlough, and to be honest if this season doesn’t complete at all how many clubs will survive.

I don’t care what other clubs do, I didn’t think anything of it when Newcastle did it, I couldn’t care if Arsenal did it, but what I quoted you before 550 people even though it’s only around 220 actually on the government scheme if Sugar is correct is a lot of money. If you picture in the hit could be around 150m in losses if null and void, why add an extra 3m.

out of those 220 most will only be £20 out of pocket and might not even be that if they don’t earn a certain amount, and with everything closed and in lockdown they shouldn’t really be worse off because they can’t go spending it anywhere.

also at the moment money is the last thing on my mind, near on 800 died yesterday near on 7k in total, sod the money lives are more important