Real Madrid players will need to take another huge pay cut if the club is to avoid major losses at the end of next season.
And according to 2Playbook.com the club will not follow Barcelona’s lead and ask players to defer wages, instead insisting on salary cuts to save the club financially in the long term.
Real Madrid’s losses of €91m (£83million) last season were off-set by players taking a 10 per cent salary cut and that will need to be repeated if the economic effects of Covid-19 are not to be felt at the end of this campaign.
Barcelona are currently trying to negotiate a deferral of salaries they say will be unilaterally enforced if players don’t agree to the measure.
Madrid could have adopted a similar tactic of lengthening deals so that players receive money specified in their contracts but over a longer period, but 2Playbook.com reports that Real Madrid president Florentino Perez prefers the option of a cut in salaries justified by the extraordinary circumstances in which the club finds itself.
The pandemic means revenue is set to fall from the €900m (£821million) the club would have expected to make in the 2020-21 season to the €616m (£562million) figure now being budgeted for.
The squad agreed a 10 per cent cut in salary last April when coronavirus first closed football down and left teams coming back to empty stadiums, a permanently closed club museum, pending season ticket refunds, and no pre-season tour.
It now seems that will need to be repeated to help the club face the €300m (£273million) shortfall in revenue.
The club did not sign any players in the summer for the first time in 40 years and that frugality will be used as an argument when the squad has to be convinced to make the salary sacrifice for the second time since the coronavirus first led to stadiums being closed.