I know its not popular opinion in the nation at the moment but most footballers really arent that bad.
I know a few premier league players (two are associates and one is a mate) and i spoke to him on Wednesday and we got talking about the current situation (i dont know exactly what he earns)
He said right from a few weeks ago when this country really began to get affected, games were called off, etc there has been a willingness from premier league players to offer financial support and its only been 10 days since it was announced the lockdown measures.
He said its been very unofficial as there have been talks between different players who know people at other clubs, etc and nobody has wanted to start speaking out to the social media, news outlets, etc until they knew what they were going to do which may come across as doing nothing.
At first they had said about each player making a donation from their own personal accounts to a fund (he said most players were on board with that) but its where to pay it too and they have been getting advice on that. At first they said about the NHS to give more money to the nurses, care workers, etc.
The problem with that is the NHS is already well funded by the government for the current situation and anything they do wont benefit the workers right now, ie - if they send a cheque for x amount, it wont go to to the nurses and give them a payrise immediately or help get new staff in, the government are already making extra funds available for all that.
Even things like ambulances, equipment, etc if they donated to that, it doesnt happen immediately, you wont get a new vehicle the next day.
They then had also looked into donating to hospices and charities but there are that many it then becomes who do they donate too, how much goes to bigger ones, how much to local ones, etc so there is a bit more planning to it, you are possibly looking at between 250-300 players making a donation so it does take organising to get it to the right people.
And then this week there has been the furlough announcements from a few clubs which has really rocked the boat, i dont know about Newcastle but he said apparently most Spurs players didnt know anything about their plans regarding the non playing staff until it was in the news this week and that has shocked them.
The same as making sure the money filters down, most players apparently would be happy to support lower league clubs through donations but they have just found out this week that their friends at the training ground, canteen, matchday staff, etc are losing out so they want to get them sorted first.
This has only come out this week so all of a sudden a lot of the spurs players want their money to go towards ensuring that the people who are affected at their club are looked after, again there are logistics to doing that, but they need to know from the club who is paid what, what the club is doing and again, they arent seeing these people everyday anymore to ask them, so the club have to help them a bit, its not 1 or 2 staff, its hundreds, Harry Kane probably doesnt have the phone number of Bob who is one of the stewards, let alone his bank details to transfer him money, they cant give them bundles of cash as they dont see each other and logistically that cant work with it being hundreds of people and would you be sure if they did it through the club the people who need it get it right now when it matters.
With the likelihood that other clubs will announce similar plans, players seem to apparently want to make sure they look after their own club staff first which i think is fair enough and then support others.
The other main sticking point is the PFA, they represent the players and at the moment they are asking questions as to why the players employers - billion pound football clubs, are operating how they are and what are they going to be doing next, especially with clubs lower down the pyramid really struggling, it doesnt bode well for saving those clubs when the big boys are already making cuts of their own.
Apparently there is some phone meeting today between football club captains / reps and he seemed to think an announcement will be coming from the players as a group soon but this has been going on a while and they are making sure its a group effort and that its going to the people who really need it.
Topic: OFFICIAL PREMIER LEAGUE THREAD (Read 2370217 times)
