Pretty sure football players wages are legally protected.
When a club goes bust it's the players wages (rightly or wrongly) that are at the head of the queue to be paid.
Any cuts will need to be a mutual thing, and until now the players union have been saying to players "don't agree anything".
Exactly. Spurs, like all clubs, will be desperate to get their players to agree to a sizeable pay cut. But, unlike with normal employees, it’s not something that they can dictate. Otherwise, the players could interpret it as a breach of contract - thus essentially rendering them free agents. Any pay cut will have to be voluntary on the part of the players. And, as I understand it, the PFA are supposed to be handling it. But they seem to be dragging their feet.