Luton players have at long last agreed wage deferrals to help keep costs down during the Coronavirus crisis, but chief executive Gary Sweet has blasted the way the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA), handled the saga.
The Town supremo revealed that the Hatters squad had all been willing to help the club out, but that their union dragged their heels for more than a month and made the club jump through hoops to prove players needed to assist.
This was after the Hatters had furloughed staff at the start of April. Sweet, himself, took a pay cut, while a month ago, the club was also forced to part ways with former boss Graeme Jones and three of his staff to help cut costs.
But negotiations with players laboured on for more than a month, until Sweet revealed yesterday that a wage deferral deal had been struck – news that got somewhat overshadowed by the return of Nathan Jones as manager.
Sweet said: “Our players now have agreed a salary deferral which we are happy with and has taken place from the first of this month effectively, for the month of May, that means that everybody now in the club is contributing to this coronavirus situation, so we’re in a good shape.”
Sweet has maintained since the start of the pandemic, that all footballers across the EFL would have to contribute to the costs of the game’s shutdown, or face clubs, and therefore employers, going out of business.
Asked about the importance of the wage deferral deal for his own players, the Town chief said: “(It’s) absolutely vital. We were always confident that would happen.
“They were always willing to do it, it was always about the value and how, the terms and the conditions, but ultimately the PFA have got a lot to answer for in my opinion.
“I think the guidance the players got from the PFA has been pretty hap-hazard and quite unprofessional because they have given authority for some clubs to go with deferrals with their squads but not other clubs.
“We had to go through a process of demonstrating our financial statements and cash flows on behalf of the PFA in order to get their approval to recommend that to the players.
“As a player, if you’re signed up to what is effectively one of the strongest unions in the world, you’re going to have to listen to them, so I don’t blame the players as much as I do the PFA.
“I’ve been having trouble with them for weeks now so it’s not a problem to me but I’m pleased it is sorted and it will need to be an ongoing conversation, of course.
“We don’t know what’s happening in terms of unlocking protocols for the nation in a month’s time, so we have to follow those guidelines and ultimately the objective here is for us to financially get to a position where we are safely playing in front of a crowd again.”
