Inter contacts Madrid and Barça to cut wages

Serie A clubs are seriously considering cutting footballers' salaries due to the coronavirus emergency. At this time it is impossible to imagine a return date for the championships: at best, football could be played again in the first 10 days of May, with competitions ending before June 30.

If not, there are two scenarios. First He plans to extend the season until July, something that would entail modifying all contracts already expired on the 30th, including transfers, in order to continue to have all the players until the tournaments are over. Many Calcio footballers and their representatives, as AS learned, have already given the go-ahead to that option. But the other case is more complicated.

If the emergency is still serious in May, it will be necessary to consider permanently suspending all the championships. For Serie A, the economic prejudice would be enormous: around 800 million euros, perhaps more. Many clubs have already invested the money they expected from television rights, which with this scenario would no longer arrive for the last stretch of the season.

How to save all the movement? Reducing expenses, there is no other. And that's why, during yesterday's assembly, the Serie A teams already discussed about suspending payments to footballers for the month of March. Damiano Tommasi, president of AIC, the Italian association of footballers, opened the doors to negotiate (“Footballers are the first ones interested in maintaining the system”), but asked for calm, since it is not yet known if the season will be suspended, and above all he recalled that each player will have to decide individually: “We cannot compel anyone.”

So, according to 'Il Giornale', Inter CEO Beppe Marotta contacted several European clubs to propose the same strategy in this matter: both Barcelona and Real Madrid, for the Italian newspaper, would have already given their approval. The idea would be cut 30% of footballers' salaries, which in this way would renounce their payments for March, April, May and June. The negotiation would be complicated, long and hard, but nobody wants to get there: the hope is that it can be played again. But that, to this day, no one can assure.