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Coronavirus: Levy announces Tottenham wage cuts, players urged to 'do their bit'

Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy has announced widespread wage cuts across non-playing staff at the club and has suggested players will need to be prepared to do their bit in order to battle the coronavirus crisis.

Players at several top clubs, including Barcelona, Juventus and Borussia Dortmund have agreed to salary cuts during the pandemic.

Non-playing staff face wage cuts at Tottenham and Levy, who earned £7 million last year as per Tottenham's latest accounts, said he is hopeful players and coaches throughout football would follow suit.

"When I read or hear stories about player transfers this summer like nothing has happened, people need to wake up to the enormity of what is happening around us," a Tottenham statement read. "With over 786,000 infected, nearly 38,000 deaths and large segments of the world in lockdown we need to realise that football cannot operate in a bubble.

"We maybe the eighth largest Club in the world by revenue according to the Deloitte survey but all that historical data is totally irrelevant as this virus has no boundaries.

"We have seen some of the biggest clubs in the world such as Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Juventus take steps to reduce their costs.

"Yesterday, having already taken steps to reduce costs, we ourselves made the difficult decision -- in order to protect jobs -- to reduce the remuneration of all 550 non-playing directors and employees for April and May by 20% utilising, where appropriate, the government's furlough scheme.

"We shall continue to review this position. We hope the current discussions between the Premier League, PFA and LMA will result in players and coaches doing their bit for the football eco system.

"Many families will have lost loved ones, many businesses will have been destroyed, millions of jobs lost and many Clubs whether big or small may struggle to exist. It is incumbent on me as Chairman to ensure we do everything we can to protect our employees, our fans, our partners, our Club for future generations -- and equally important -- our wider community where we have such an immense sense of responsibility."

Fellow Premier League side Norwich City, sitting in at the bottom of the league, announced it would furlough staff and use the government programme.

"The club will top up the money received from the scheme to ensure that all furloughed staff receive their usual salary in full," Norwich said.

"The furloughing of staff will safeguard future jobs and help sustain the club throughout this period."

Meanwhile, Manchester United are confident salary cuts won't be necessary due to their multitude of global sponsorship partners.

The Premier League has been postponed until April 30 at the earliest as the UK continues to remain on lockdown in a bid to halt the coronavirus outbreak.

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