Players and board need to take a pay cut

Newcastle, owned by billionaire Mike Ashley, and Tottenham (where chairman Daniel Levy received £7m last year) have both rightly received flak for furloughing their staff and relying on the government scheme to pay 80 per cent of the staff's wages. Football is awash with money at the top and although match revenues have been hit it would chime with the mood of the country if the players and directors took a voluntary pay cut to see the club through to whenever games are resumed. 

Credit to Bournemouth's Eddie Howe for being the first PL manager to say he's taking a salary cut. At West Ham David Moyes could do the same while Karren Brady could certainly get by on less than her £1m-plus salary. David Sullivan and David Gold could perhaps announce they are taking reduced loan repayments this year to help the club. This would be the right thing to do and good PR, which the board certainly needs. 

The PFA are resisting efforts to cut wages at the moment, but as Paul MacInnes suggests in the Guardian, they should get together and decide among themselves to take a reduction at a time of national emergency. For a footballer it's not that difficult to scrape by on £80k a week instead of £100k a week. There should be more than enough to keep the people who sell us tickets and run the offices employed.