On Friday I said that I felt I could safely say that Dave Kitson leaving Pompey for Sheffield United, maybe anybody, was ‘never EVER gonna happen!’
I do not think that it is too much of an over estimation to say that the higher earners that Portsmouth Football Club have, again arguably any players that this club have, opting to ‘rip up their contracts’ is also never EVER gonna happen…
Due to the fact that Pompey players have had ‘their contracts breached’ by wage deferrals they would be entitled to give 14-days notice to quit, and walk away as a free agent.
What player, especially given the vast amounts of money that literally every senior 1st team player left at Fratton is on – deferred or not, they still eventually get this – will do that?
Quite clearly our highest earner Tal Ben-Haim will not do that, he wants a £2m golden handshake, and nor will Kanu, he wants a payment of £300,000.
It is a toss of the coin as to whether, working on the basis of a player being on £10,000 per week – which I am almost 100% certain is still less than the minimum the existing senior players are on, and I would say around £12,500 plus is the smallest amount these senior players are bringing in – it would be better for them to tear up their contract and walk out on a free and save us almost £500,000 in wages for a year or for us to sell them for £500,000?
Someone like Greg Halford for example must be worth around £1m at least, but we are only going to get something like £500,000 – at best – for him I would guess.
Yep half a million would come in handy for Pompey at this point in time but getting someone off the wage that would earn, I reckon, at least that amount over the season helps bring this down…
In an ideal world contracts would not be ripped up and players would be sold, albeit it for minimal amounts as money is generated that way and wages are saved – but this is a highly unlikely scenario and Pompey is far from being part of an ‘ideal world’.
As much as Pompey need to generate cash I would say that reducing the wage bill is more important as an ongoing concern so if a player (not the kids of course!) opted to walk away this is something that I think we should welcome but it is NEVER EVER gonna happen, especially with the likes of your TBH’s is it!
It is also little surprise that it has been confirmed that no one has really even explored the option of this, and I doubt too many will be clambering to do so either…
PLAY UP POMPEY!
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