Players wage cuts begin as Premier League advances millions to head off clubs' cashflow crisis

Southampton FC’s directors, manager Ralph Hasenhuttl, his coaching staff and the entire first team squad have agreed to defer a proportion of their wages for three months.

They are the first Premier League club to do so but the others will carve out similar emergency measures in the coming days.

Rather than negotiating individual arrangements, ITV News understands they’ve all agreed the same percentage cut; a voluntary deal that means no non-playing staff will be furloughed.

For all clubs, whatever the size, cashflow is the enemy right now.

The Premier League is doing its best to mitigate that by paying out "merit" money early.

Each month, the League is releasing millions of pounds to clubs that they might have earned had the season continued normally.

The model works on the basis of identifying which games would have been televised, attracting "facility fees", and the likely finishing positions once the league is completed.

Effectively it’s an advance on prize money.

Cashflow problems are affecting even Premier League clubs. Credit: PA

The Premier League can afford to do this as it has already collected all of this season’s money from domestic and overseas broadcast deals.

What the move shows is that the smaller Premier League clubs are not immune to the financial challenges facing all of football now.

But the plight of Premier League clubs does not compare to the precarious nature of keeping clubs afloat in the lower leagues.

That challenge was laid scarily bare this morning in a series of tweets by the chair of Accrington Stanley, Andy Holt.

The English Football League (EFL) has already had an advance of £125 million and is due to circulate a plan for that on Thursday, but Holt says once that is released, it will be gone in a heartbeat.

Most enlightening however are his views on the challenges beyond this season, even if it does get finished.

He is calling for early financial planning on how the following campaign might look because if it’s not sustainable he suggests clubs could wind up now, save millions in losses, and prepare to restart in a stronger more stable position when the pandemic and its effects are well and truly in the rear-view mirror.

The fact that the Premier League is already propping up its own clubs with advance payments is a real indication of the perilous state the rest of the pyramid finds itself in.