Haringey boss Loizou believes ‘ridiculous’ player wages may be reduced because of coronavirus
Tom Loizou, manager of Haringey Borough. Picture: George Phillipou/TGS Photo - Credit: George Phillipou/TGS Photo
Haringey Borough boss Tom Loizou believes the impact of the coronavirus may encourage non-league clubs to spend less on “ridiculous” player wages.
All leagues at steps three to six of the non-league pyramid, which includes the Isthmian Premier Division, were declared null and void last week with all results expunged.
Borough sat 15th in the table at the time of the decision and despite it leaving many clubs in a difficult financial position due to the loss of income, Loizou believes there may be a positive.
“I think there will be a lot of teams in a bad place where they will be in debt and won’t be able to pay players so much,” he said.
“Maybe this is what we needed to cap these wages because they were getting ridiculous.
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“Every time I tried to sign a player he was talking hundreds when we’re used to paying expenses and a few players on contracts.
“We’re a club that doesn’t run before we can walk.
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“It was built over a very slow period and very little money was being paid out.
“But our football club is reliant on the boot sale which has been cancelled, pitch hire which is cancelled, container hiring which no one can afford to pay for.
“We hire out the parking to local businesses which now no one is using so we have absolutely zero income coming in.
“I haven’t been able to pay myself but we’re going to try our very hardest to pay our contracted players until the end of the season.”
More than 60 non-league clubs have since signed a letter to the Football Association asking them to reconsider the decision to expunge all results.
While the decision does not have a huge impact on mid-table Haringey, Loizou admits it was disappointing not to be able to finish the season.
He added: “We weren’t going to go down and weren’t going to go up.
“But I can understand why teams are going to be a little bit upset, especially the ones that are in one and two positions.
“Considering we’ve had to rebuild on four different occasions, we were getting to a point where I felt we were turning a corner again.
“It would have been nice to finish around the play-off area, I don’t think we’d have got in there unless a few of the other teams threw it away.”
