Most Arsenal stars have on Monday agreed to have their wages cut by 12.5% due to the impact of Covid-19 but Mesut Ozil was one of three players to reject the proposed cuts.
The press have published Ozil’s weekly salary in an effort to shame the footballer for refusing to agree to a wage reduction.
According to The Mirror, Ozil, who is the club’s highest earner on £350,000-a-week, has made it clear he may be willing to do it in the future but wanted to see the full financial impact of the coronavirus and did not want to rush into a decision.
Ozil’s agent Erkut Sogut hinted at why his client said ‘no’ in The Athletic latest edition of the Steilcast podcast.
“Some clubs will be very smart and they’ll use this time to say ‘financially we’re not in a good position. Had (Covid-19) not happened we could have been in a position to pay 80 million (for a player) but now we can just pay 30 million’. But you don’t know. Is this just an excuse? Or is it smart tactically to use coronavirus as an excuse.
“You can imagine that a club will say to a player ‘we can’t pay you this amount of money, we can just pay you this because of the virus.’
“It is not enough for a club to present a proposal to one member of the first team squad and then ask them to go to the rest of the squad and get their consent to do it. That is not how individual contract negotiations should take place.
“A club may even ask a first team manager to negotiate with players and this may influence some, particularly younger players or those on the fringe who fear there might be personal repercussions for him if he does not agree.
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“In those circumstances, it could be questionable that any consent from the players would be legally binding anyway as some players are not in a position to give true consent if they are under pressure to do so.”
This article was most recently revised and updated 4 years ago
