Madrid (AFP)

The "White House" is no exception: also hit by the health crisis due to the epidemic of new coronavirus, Real Madrid agreed with the players to reduce their wages by at least 10% this year, the club said on Wednesday via press release.

"The players and staff members of the Real Madrid first football and basketball teams, represented by their captains, and the main leaders of the various sectors of the club have reached an agreement to voluntarily reduce their wages this year between 10% and 20%, depending on the circumstances that may lead to the final cessation of the 2019-2020 season, "announced the Madrid club via press release on Wednesday.

"This decision, adopted by the players, the coaches and the employees, makes it possible to avoid resorting to traumatic measures which would affect the rest of the employees, and helps to maintain the economic objectives of our entity, faced with the reduction of revenues due to the suspension of competitions and the paralysis of a large part of commercial activities ", specifies the press release.

According to the Spanish press, the drop will be 10% if the 2019-2020 season comes to an end, and 20% if it is finally stopped.

Long presented as the club best equipped financially to deal with this sudden drop in revenue, Real Madrid and its payroll of 283 million euros finally had to go through an agreement with the players to hope to save between 28 and 56 million euros, depending on the future of the 2019-2020 season.

With this voluntary agreement found with the players, the goal is to avoid as much as possible having to resort to a partial unemployment plan, because this would severely affect the some 800 employees of the "White House", whose wages are much lower than the players professional football and basketball teams.

The La Liga has however recommended that clubs use partial unemployment plans (ERTE, in Spanish) to try to minimize the losses caused by the epidemic. In Spain, Barça, Atlético Madrid, Sevilla FC and Espanyol Barcelona have, for example, already used partial unemployment plans.

With 146,690 cases and 14,555 deaths according to the latest report sent by the authorities on Wednesday, Spain is the second most bereaved country in the world by the COVID-19 epidemic, behind Italy.

© 2020 AFP