Football across Europe has ground to a halt due to a health emergency that has triggered a national lockdown in Spain, the second-worst hit country on the continent after Italy.
According to AS, Barcelona president Josep Bartomeu unsuccessfully tried to get the club’s first-team squad to accept a salary reduction.
The proposal is said to have been more generous than that made to the other professional teams at the club, like the basketball team.
Barcelona had proposed that all the club’s pro teams would take a 70 per cent wage cut while they are unable to play during Spain’s national state of emergency.
But Bartomeu is looking into offering first-team players compensation that would see them not lose more than 50 per cent of their earnings, as the football team brings in more revenue than other sports at the club.
Barca are now looking to legally apply the Spanish temporary redundancy scheme, which would allow them to impose the measures without the approval of the players.
All football in Spain, including La Liga, has been suspended indefinitely while the country wrestles with the devastating virus outbreak.
Barcelona are currently top of the table, two points ahead of Real Madrid, but domestic action will only resume when the government deems it safe to do so without any health risk.
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