Luton Town chief executive Gary Sweet has warned that the club won’t survive if they can’t cut costs, with negotiations over player pay cuts underway amid the Coronavirus shutdown of football.
While the EFL yesterday announced proposals for clubs in League One and Two to defer 25 per cent of player wages for April, Championship clubs are expected to make individual decisions.
Birmingham and Leeds had already announced deferments for their squads’ salaries, but there has been no universal agreement over wages with the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) and EFL yet to come to an agreement over what clubs should be recommending to their players.
“It’s up to us now to negotiate that with our squad. We will need to do that with our squad, and we are doing that with our squad currently,” said Sweet, who had previously said footballers at all clubs would have to help clubs if they wanted a career in football, post Coronavirus.
“We’ve got a good bunch of lads, actually, and they’ve connected with the club here, so I can see that we will have fewer problems than any other club in the Championship, certainly, but they are on a lower wage base and I really feel for them.
“I feel for anyone who is having to contribute in this, because this situation is no fault of anybody’s.
“We are in this awkward position where unless we cut that cost base, then Luton Town is going to suffer badly going forward and, actually, if we can’t cut it at all, it won’t survive – quite simply.
“So, we have to do that. I think we will come to an agreement, however that may look.”
Luton have one of the lowest playing budgets in the Championship and have already announced staff will be furloughed, but Sweet has confirmed that player wages still make up more than half of their outgoings.
He said: “We absolutely need to reduce our cost base, and therefore footballers have to help in that. Every single member of staff probably needs to help in that in some form. Every supplier probably needs to help in that in some form.
“If we are to continue healthily after this, then we absolutely have to reduce our cost base.”
Luton have not played since March 7 and towards the end of last month there was talk of Championship wages being capped at £6,000 to cope with the crisis, but that would not help the Hatters whose top earners are on that.
Sweet said: “Clearly, footballers, players on the whole, everybody thinks of them as being wealthy young lads with lots of surplus expenditure.
“I think that might be the case with a few, but our lads are generally quite grounded and whilst they probably earn good levels of income that many of us could only dream of, their careers are very short and they do tend to invest or, let’s say, spend their money in a certain way that gives them certain commitments.
“So, actually we can’t just take huge amounts of money away from them. I am aware of other clubs that are taking huge amounts of money from players down to a base of £6K a week in the Championship.
“Well, that’s where our cost-base ends, so it’s all relative, so we do need to do something, and we will do something.”
