Gary Sweet admits that an extended season due to the Coronavirus crisis puts him in a ‘terrible’ position over expiring players’ contracts as the chief executive has revealed that the livelihoods of staff must take precedence.
The football season is suspended until at least April 30 due to the pandemic with the current campaign extended indefinitely beyond the usual June 1 finish date.
That will leave question marks over the futures of footballers up and down the country, with those on expiring deals set to end in June.
Hatters stars, including Danny Hylton and Glen Rea, won’t know whether a ball will be kicked again before their deals finish on June 30.
Chief executive Sweet said: “It’s terrible, I really feel for those guys because we can’t really give them very much guidance at the moment.
“We are engaging with the senior pros and bringing them along with all of our knowledge and really I want to do that with them and with the PFA, hand-in-hand to make sure we do this as a partnership and a collaboration rather than us go to the PFA, demanding this or that.”
While the Hatters chief has admitted that pay cuts for players could be necessary to help the club and the football industry to survive, he is also keen to avoid redundancies for the club’s staff, who were the first in English professional football to be paid the Living Wage.
So, the question of players’ contracts must also be weighed up against those considerations.
Sweet said: “Something may have to give, unfortunately, and I think one of the reasons why that is because we have staff who are on the Living Wage here – many more staff than players who are on the Living Wage here – and they are ultimately the ones we need to try and protect, because their livelihoods could suffer much more if they lost their positions, going forward.
“So, our objective is really, as much as possible, to protect those jobs first, and in-hand, then we work with the other staff, higher earning staff, and players, to see if there is some sort of contribution we can get from those levels in order to ensure that Luton Town Football Club remains intact when we come back.”
