Sports News of Thursday, 23 April 2020

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

You can’t force players to accept pay cuts – Asante Kotoko CEO

Asante Kotoko CEO ,George Amoako Asante Kotoko CEO ,George Amoako

Chief Executive Officer of Asante Kotoko SC, George Amoako has stated that the club will only agree to slash salaries if the playing body and the technical team members consent to it.

The Coronavirus pandemic has halted the 2019/20 Ghana Premier League and all other sporting activities in the world.

This has forced clubs in Europe to initiate a salary cut policy to reduce their financial burden in a period where everything has come to a standstill.

Though some Ghana Premier League clubs including Asante Kotoko and Hearts of Oak want to replicate this in the local scene because they have lost their main source of revenue (gate proceeds), the Kotoko CEO believes they can only do that when the actors involved accept to cut their salaries.

In an interview with Kumasi based Nhyira FM, he said the contract they have with individual actors makes it impossible for the club to force any policy on the players if they are not willing to do it.

“Pay cut is under review and nobody can force it on the neck of the playing body. Players have a contract with the club and all over the world a pay cut is based on negotiations and agreement.”

“You cannot have it one day that everybody will agree that you should cut down their salaries because it is a very difficult thing to do. We will negotiate and come to a consensus with the players but if they refuse to cut down their salaries there is nothing that we(management) can do about it,“ he added.