Premier League Clubs Fail the Smell Test by Furloughing Their Staff

 Premier League clubs have been accused of being woefully out of touch with the national sentiment. Photograph: Clive Rose/Getty Images
Premier League clubs have been accused of being woefully out of touch with the national sentiment. Photograph: Clive Rose/Getty Images
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Premier League Clubs Fail the Smell Test by Furloughing Their Staff

 Premier League clubs have been accused of being woefully out of touch with the national sentiment. Photograph: Clive Rose/Getty Images
Premier League clubs have been accused of being woefully out of touch with the national sentiment. Photograph: Clive Rose/Getty Images

Under the shadow of coronavirus new rules are being made and unmade. Things that were unknown and alien a week ago are increasingly part of daily life. But some things do not need explaining. They feel instinctively right, or plain wrong and Premier League clubs furloughing their staff is one.

On Monday Mike Ashley took the plunge, announcing Newcastle would be the first club to stop paying all non-playing staff. Instead they could apply for emergency funding, 80% of their salary up to £2,500 a month under the government’s coronavirus job retention scheme.

Newcastle turned over £178m in their last published accounts. Ashley was estimated to be worth just under £2bn in the lastest Sunday Times rich list. Yet the move did not surprise many; a week previously Ashley had decided his Sports Direct retail business should ignore the national lockdown and carry on trading because it sold essential items, such as Lonsdale-branded flight bags, until government pressure told.

Twenty-four hours after the Newcastle announcement, amid a lengthy statement calling on the world of football to “wake up to the enormity of what is happening around us”, Tottenham’s chairman, Daniel Levy, said he would be also be furloughing staff, with the taxpayer to pick up the bill. Spurs had just announced a profit of £172.7m with Levy confirmed as the highest-paid director in English football, taking home £7m.

On Tuesday Norwich joined the gang, although they would top up their employees’ furlough payment so it matched their usual salary. Norwich operate on one of the smallest budgets in the Premier League but in 2018-19, in the Championship, they gave their highest-paid director £472,000.

Are football clubs going through straitened times? No doubt. Not only have they been suddenly deprived of the revenuefrom playing matches – from tickets and bar receipts to the ads on electronic hoardings – they face the prospect of having to return money to broadcasters should the season not be completed and to sponsors whose logos will not have been seen as often as they were promised.

In losing out on income they had assumed was guaranteed, football clubs are hardly alone. Some, even in the top flight, could be classed as medium-sized enterprises, taking in less each year than a Tesco Extra. But despite that, football clubs are not an ordinary business.

Of late there has been much speculation as to how the Premier League may complete the season and thus forestall some of its losses. The idea of a sporting “mega event” has been floated, with clubs playing lots of football in short order on TV. It has apparently been encouraged by government which, given the unknowable knock-on effects to public health, sounds about right. Such an event, it has been suggested, could boost the nation’s morale.

This idea attests to an obvious fact: Premier League football plays a central role in British life. Clubs and players are put on pedestals, treated as role models and heroes. They did not ask for it to be that way but to say those at the top do not benefit, and enjoy benefiting, from that privilege is nonsense. That is why actions such as those taken by Newcastle, Tottenham and Norwich have immediately and pungently failed the smell test.

In the middle of all this are the players. We are used to the fetishisation of their great wealth and the question, never far behind, as to whether they deserve it. They did not create this problem but their union, the Professional Footballers’ Association, is wrangling with the Premier League over whether their wages should be subject to alteration in order to help clubs stay afloat.

The PFA does not trust the clubs and perhaps rightly so. On the other hand the PFA is an opaque organisation with questions that linger over what it does with its substantial revenues beyond paying its chief executive, Gordon Taylor, a salary comparable to that of a Premier League player.

The players should take this moment and break from their union. Like many others in this crisis they should use it to do good. Bournemouth are pursuing the same approach as Norwich but Eddie Howe and his staff are taking pay cuts voluntarily.

Premier League players should follow Leeds’ example and offer to forgo a portion of their salary, too, so that none of their colleagues are furloughed and to protect as many livelihoods lower down the pyramid as they can.

It’s clear, from listening to individual players, that this is what many of them want. They should set an example to those higher up the football food chain and just do it. The country would thank them.

The Guardian Sport



US Beats Czechia 4-1 to Set up World Junior Hockey Final against Finland

Gabe Perreault #34 of Team USA scores on goaltender Michael Hrabel #30 of Team Czechia in the first period of the semifinal match during the 2025 IIHF World Junior Championship at Canadian Tire Center on January 4, 2025 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. (Getty Images North America/Getty Images via AFP)
Gabe Perreault #34 of Team USA scores on goaltender Michael Hrabel #30 of Team Czechia in the first period of the semifinal match during the 2025 IIHF World Junior Championship at Canadian Tire Center on January 4, 2025 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. (Getty Images North America/Getty Images via AFP)
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US Beats Czechia 4-1 to Set up World Junior Hockey Final against Finland

Gabe Perreault #34 of Team USA scores on goaltender Michael Hrabel #30 of Team Czechia in the first period of the semifinal match during the 2025 IIHF World Junior Championship at Canadian Tire Center on January 4, 2025 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. (Getty Images North America/Getty Images via AFP)
Gabe Perreault #34 of Team USA scores on goaltender Michael Hrabel #30 of Team Czechia in the first period of the semifinal match during the 2025 IIHF World Junior Championship at Canadian Tire Center on January 4, 2025 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. (Getty Images North America/Getty Images via AFP)

Boston University's Cole Eiserman broke a second-period tie and the defending champion United States beat Czechia 4-1 on Saturday night to advance to the world junior hockey championship game.

The Americans will face Finland — a 4-3 overtime winner over Sweden in the first semifinal — for the title Sunday night. Finland beat the United States 4-3 in overtime in group play.

Eiserman made it 2-1 with 6:19 left in the second with a one-timer off a cross-ice feed.

“I’m proud of our guys,” said coach David Darle of Denver. “We played an excellent Czech team and it was a very difficult game. We continue to grow as a group and we’ll get set to face another great team in Finland tomorrow."

Boston College teammates Ryan Leonard and Gabe Perreault each had a goal and an assist for the Americans. Minnesota's Oliver Moore also scored, and Michigan State's Trey Augustine made 26 saves.

The Americans are seeking their seventh title and first back-to-back championships.

“It would mean everything,” said Perreault, who also played last season. “We definitely have the team to do it. We’ll be ready to go.”

Jakub Stancl scored for the Czechs. Michael Hrabal stopped 21 shots.

In the first semifinal, Benjamin Rautiainen scored on a power play at 9:22 of overtime to lift Finland past Sweden.

Rautiainen beat goalie Melker Thelin from a sharp angle to the right of the net on a 4-on-3-man advantage with Tom Willander in the penalty box for holding.

“Very skillful guy at doing things like that,” Finnish coach Lauri Mikkola said about Rautiainen. “Nobody expected when he shoots.”

Petteri Rimpinen made 43 saves for Finland. Emil Hemming had a goal and an assist and Jesse Kiiskinen and Arttu Alasiurua also scored.

Otto Stenberg scored twice for Sweden. Wilhelm Hallquisth also scored and Thelin stopped 31 shots.