Atletico Madrid to announce wage cuts

• 500 Staffs To Be Affected

Atletico Madrid is close to announcing a package of wage cuts and temporary redundancies that will affect as many as 500 employees including players.

If Barcelona is the club most struggling with the financial consequences of the coronavirus because of their huge over-spend, Atletico Madrid is not far behind them.

Atletico made a huge investment last summer when they spent £112million on then 19-year-old Joao Felix and it stretched the club to the extent that, when injuries to Diego Costa and Alvaro Morata meant they needed a forward in January, they were unable to buy one.

Now the club looks like being the second Spanish giant behind Barcelona, late on Thursday, to announce an ‘ERTE’ – the temporary laying-off of staff for a period of time in exceptional circumstances.

Barcelona players will see their wages slashed despite the board and squad having yet to reach an agreement as tensions rumble on at the Catalan club.

ATLETICO MADRID’S TOP EARNERS
Attention at Atletico will then need to be turned on the playing squad and even on Diego Simeone, the highest-earning coach in football. It will also affect the third-most-expensive playing staff in LaLiga. Atletico’s wage bill stands at £312million.

The top earner at the club is not a player but manager Simeone, who is paid a staggering £37m per year – £700,000 per week.

Goalkeeper Jan Oblak is paid almost half of Simeone’s salary but is the club’s highest earner on the playing staff at £360,000 p/w.

Diego Costa takes home £270,000 p/w, while another former Chelsea striker, Alvaro Morata is paid £700,000 p/w.

Captain Koke (£270,000 p/w), Felix (£250,000 p/w) and Saul Niguez (£206,000 p/w) are the next highest earners.

When the club announced its budget at the start of the season, the projected revenue to be at £462m. That figure is now in danger of not being reached if remaining games have to be played behind closed doors or even not played at all, endangering television money as well as matchday income.

‘Everyone is doing ERTEs,’ said president Enrique Cerezo. ‘But ERTEs are not EREs,’ he added in reference to permanent lay-offs, which is also an option for clubs.

Culled from dailymail.co.uk