One of the few things that's actually going on in the sporting world right now ;) It's blown up on social media that Ozil is one of three players at Arsenal who has rejected a 12.5% pay cut despite earning over £300,000 even with the cut. Darren Bent has now also jumped on board with this and said that there was a 'snake in the dressing room' who shouldn't be leaking this information and that Ozil is just 'being cautious with his money'.

 

What do you think of sports stars rejecting pay cuts? Do you think they have a foot to stand on for doing this?

I would think sport stars who earn six figure sums would surely consider a pay cut if they were asked again but then again some people wouldn't.

Ozick certainly seems to have mastered the art of making himself unpopular.

Avoiding the debate about the toxicity of money in football for a moment

 

 

I think in the coronavirus that footballers have become an easy target. I don’t see the tory health minister calling out all his wealthy city pals or private school chums who are paid millions and siphon money into offshore tax havens to avoid uk taxes. The targeting of a profession overwhelmingly working class in origin is sick.

 

However, under the current environment anyone on super star wages not taking a nominal and temporary pay cut to show solidarity with the thousands of match day staff the clubs have had to furlough probably needs an attitude check. They’re not the only club to refuse this and sure there’s a valid argument that the clubs bankrolled by billionaires or countries shouldn’t need to take a pay cut at this time but this is about living up to your role model status and doing something that would mean a lot to the ordinary people who follow and worship them.

 

I know a lot of United players who have been giving back in a variety of ways by providing food packages to vulnerable people in their communities or paying for shipments of PPE. All while taking a wage cut. You’ve got Rashford on twitter every day interacting with all the fans and probably making their year with a response. Every little gesture helps.

Yeah I agree with a lot of that. I do have to remind myself that the money from the pay cuts is going to the already-rich clubs as opposed to actually helping with the Coronavirus crisis and then there's an argument to keep the wage and then give it to charity but then again as you say they can quite easily help the community with the money they've got, they're still not short of it.

I don't see how paycuts are going to help anyone when it comes to the uber-rich clubs. It just means the owners will keep more money and less tax will be payed which, in theory, would mean even less money available to go to the NHS. I think instead of a paycut, players should come to an agreement to donate to either donate to charities or even to fund a bonus for the non-playing staff on much lower wages if they are struggling.

 

To be fair, I saw very little criticism of Ozil on Twitter when it came out that he rejected a pay cut. About 90% of the tweets I saw were defending him and either pointing out the large amounts of money it's previously been reported he has donated to charities over the years or pointing out that the paycut will only resort in Stan Kroenke keeping more of the money himself. Only criticism I saw came from the newspapers/journalists that have been trying to scapegoat footballers from the start.

 

 

I know a lot of United players who have been giving back in a variety of ways by providing food packages to vulnerable people in their communities or paying for shipments of PPE. All while taking a wage cut.

 

United players haven't taken paycuts yet by the way. Maguire said as much on Sky Sports last week. "“We keep monitoring the situation weekly, and every week we will evaluate and see where we’re at and see if we need to do anything regarding pay cuts or deferrals."