Tottenham Chairman Daniel Levy is reportedly not ready to break the wage structure, according to Daily Mail. A host of first-team stars have signed contract extensions with the club and there doesn’t seem to be any problems with the wages.
However, Daniel Levy has issued a warning to Tottenham players saying he will not rip up their wage structure despite a wonderful performance this season. The club’s top earners are Harry Kane and Hugo Lloris who earn around £100,000 per week according to the report.
Tottenham’s wage structure is not as flexible as the other big clubs in the top-6 and Levy has insisted that this will not tempt him to break the wage structure at the club. Toby Alderweireld, for example, has his contract running until 2020 and has not yet signed a new deal. This could be because Alderweireld has played extremely well this season and has caught everyone’s attention. He is a fan favourite and hence he probably expects to be paid a little more than what he currently earns.
The Chairman’s comments are sure to put the players on alert as they would feel the heat when trying to hold the club for a ransom. Levy, speaking at a recent meeting with the Spurs board and the club’s supporters trust, refused to guarantee his players pay rises.
“DL [Levy] said all players were under contracts, contracts they were happy to sign at the time. They would be expected to honour those contracts. They wouldn’t have had a reduction if things had gone badly. ‘DL said no player would be sold who Tottenham didn’t want to sell for non-footballing reasons.”
These comments are sure to affect the players as they put their heart and soul when they are on the pitch. It is natural for them to expect to be paid a bit more as a result of that. But if the chairman is going to be stubborn and not consider changing the wage structure, then it would be difficult to hold on to the star players at the club. Apart from this, signing big players would also become difficult.
It would be better if Levy decides otherwise and offers good wages to all the big performers at the club.
There was no ‘stern warning’, simply a statement of the blindingly obvious. Poor Erik Lamela, for instance, has been out injured since last autumn but has still been paid as usual each week, and ditto the more recent injuries to Danny Rose and Harry Winks. Toby was out injured for some weeks, Harry Kane was out injured for two stretches this season, and I think that Jan Vertonghen was out of action as well. No supporter expected them not to be paid, and no player would expect not to be paid. That’s all Levy was getting at — contracts are mutual agreements and only get signed at Spurs when all parties feel that mutual benefit in them. And if I’m not mistaken at least a couple of players these past 12-15 months have signed a couple of contract extensions each, as recognition of changing individual circumstances. So there’s nothing that “rigid” about Spurs at all, just a structure that is trying to be coherent and to enable plans to come to fruition.