Berekum Chelsea's Francis Adjei opens up on club's stance on pay cuts due to coronavirus outbreak

Published on: 25 March 2020

Berekum Chelsea Administrative Manager Francis Adjei has opened on the club's stance to cut player salaries following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

Chelsea, like most clubs in the league are feeling the financial heat after the suspension of the 2019/20 season by the Ghana Football Association until further notice.

The deadly virus has infected more than 400,000 persons around the world, killing nearly 20,000 and bringing the whole world to a near standstill.

Ghana has confirmed 52 cases of coronavirus and two deaths so far.

"Sponsors are not giving us money because there's no football activity," Chelsea administrative manager Francis Adjei told Goal on Tuesday.

"It means one of our sources of revenue for salaries has blocked. Management is having to find another way of raising money but even if we do, the question will be 'how long will this persist?'.

"Would we have to reduce salaries? And should we think about that, to start with, how much are the salaries of these boys for us to even consider a cut?

"Some are on ¢500 [€81], by how much can you even reduce that amount? If we are able to give salaries for this month, how are we going to be able to raise salaries for next month?"

He continued, "Currently, our players have been released from camp. We would want to test them when they resume but to be honest, I don't think we have the resources."

"Even in the whole Ghana, the country is struggling with resources to test all those needed. So it's not something we currently have planned.

"But after the incident, maybe the nation or the GFA can decide to come on board to help clubs get their players tested."

On how the Blues are managing their players as they await the return of the league, he added, "One of our biggest challenges is about how to monitor the activities of our players while they are home. We would have wished that we even had the resources to camp the team throughout this incident, so we can control their activities and health."

"Currently, our coaches give out instructions and assignments via a WhatsApp group that we have.

"Players are supposed to follow these, indeed they respond to those instructions but how are we sure they are actually doing what they claim they are doing or doing it well if they are doing it?"

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