Didn’t ignore anything. Genuinely hadn’t seen your first post. So I went back and found it. Sorry to have kept you waiting.
Re aggro, I thought pointing out every time a City fan had shouted a bad word at a Spurs fan over the past 40 years was a fair response to others on here pointing out every time a Spurs fan had flicked a v sign at City fans over the same period.
I totally understand where you’re coming from. But I’ve also tried to understand where Levy is coming from. Like all of us, he is reading the tea leaves and trying to predict what is likely to happen. While everyone else was talking in terms of a few months’ disruption, I suspect that Levy was making provision for the worst case scenario of a year or more of virtually nil income - in which case, the time to act was immediately.
On the matter of player salaries, I’m sure you understand that negotiating a significant cut or a deferral will have been by far Levy’s biggest priority, long before the decision to furlough non playing staff. But it quickly became apparent that, unlike Barcelona or Juventus players for instance, players at the big clubs in England weren’t going to play their part to anything like the same degree. Likely on the insistence of the brainless PFA. As I said in the article, if Levy had quickly managed to agree a substantial wage cut and / or deferral with the players, I think it very possible that he would have reversed the decision to furlough staff regardless of external pressure.
Good effort, mate, but the analogy doesn’t work! While I fully agree with your point about individual members of the public spending far less (it’s my experience too), it’s not at all the same for clubs, is it? The biggest of them still have to shell out tens of millions every month. Sure, they’ve made a few comparatively minor savings, by not hosting games etc, but nothing that can begin to mitigate the devastion wreaked on revenues.
As to last year’s profits, you do realise that Spurs have since spent £130m net on transfers?
What money is Sky or BBC throwing at clubs right now? My understanding is that payments are frozen until games restart - which is why the clubs are desperate to play out the season and get the money rolling in again.
Hopefully already answered this.
To be clear, I didn’t compare Spurs to Greggs. The only connection that they and all the other bigger companies have is that they have seen revenues take a massive hit as a consequence of COVID19.
And you’re quite right that Greggs don’t have staff members earning £250K per week. Lucky them in the current circumstances, eh?
I certainly appreciate you having read through to the end. Thank you. I respect but disagree with your opinion. But your last line..........I can see why you wrote it, because it does make for a neat ending, but I have to say that it comes across to me as a rather forced non sequitur. There are lots of legitimate criticisms to be levelled at Levy in this affair. But having a closed mind is unlikely to be one of them. As I said in the article, Levy will not have taken the decision to furlough staff lightly. For all that he has a reputation for ferociously trying to keep player wages down, he also has a reputation within the club for having previously been an excellent employer for the non playing staff.
Regardless that Levy might well have been wrong to furlough staff, he will only have done so because he believed it to be vital to the long term wellbeing of the club and, therefore, everyone who depends upon it for their employment.
