Barcelona, ​​the Spanish football champions, announced that it will reduce the salaries of its employees to face the financial consequences of stopping the competition in light of the new Corona virus, without specifying whether the move includes all employees and players.
And the spread of "Covid-19" imposed almost complete paralysis in various sports activities around the world, and led to the suspension of football competitions in Spain, the country that has become the second largest in the world in terms of the number of virus victims after Italy, with more than four thousand declared deaths and more than 56 thousand injured Thursday.
The Catalan club said in a statement: The competition stopped due to an epidemic (Covid-19), which entailed the cessation of all sports and non-sports activities for our club. The club, which was crowned the "League" in the past two seasons, and the leader in the current season’s ranking before its suspension after the 27th stage, stated that it “took a series of measures to reduce its effects (stop) and mitigate the economic consequences of this crisis.”
He stated that the procedures include "reducing the number of working days, given the current circumstances, and as a result of this the relative reduction of the salaries determined under the contracts." The club did not directly determine whether this step involved first-team footballers, knowing that Spanish press reports indicated in the past days that there were negotiations between the management of the Catalan club and the players led by Argentine star Lionel Messi, in order to implement this matter.
But press reports indicated on Thursday night that Barcelona included these players, like other sports players in the club, with a salary cut, despite their rejection of the administration's proposal. While some reports revealed that the rate of deduction from the salary may reach 70 percent under the current circumstances, it indicated that club president Josep Maria Bartomeo intends to pay "compensation" to the first football team players to mitigate this reduction, given the management's consideration that these are responsible Mainly about providing the majority of the club's revenue under normal circumstances.
The stoppage of competitions and the lack of clarity of the image about when it can be repeated in light of the health situation has caused many international football clubs, especially in Europe, to worry about their revenues falling sharply in the absence of match revenues and TV transport revenues in the current period. And resorted to several clubs in different countries, especially Germany and France, to reduce the salaries of players during this period.