Borussia Dortmund players take wage cut to help club amid coronavirus crisis

Published on: 29 March 2020

Julien Laurens and Gab Marcotti discuss Borussia Dortmund's 25% staff pay cut, including Hans-Joachim Watzke. Lionel Messi, Carli Lloyd and more join in a message to the world to advise on Coronavirus and how best to beat it.

Borussia Dortmund have announced that the club's players will forego part of their salaries to ease the financial pressure on the club amid the coronavirus crisis.

"This is a valuable sign of solidarity," club CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke said.

German football has been outspoken about the financial impact of the coronavirus crisis with the German league's CEO, Christian Seifert, saying last week that 56,000 jobs in the football business are at stake following the suspension of the league.

Seifert added that more than half of the 36 clubs making up the two upper tiers of Germany were under existential threat and the total loss if the season were to be cancelled altogether could add up to a total of €750 million for all clubs.

Last week, Borussia Monchengladbach announced that their players would forego parts of their salaries and on Tuesday Dortmund said the players, the coaching staff and the club leadership would follow suit.

"Borussia Dortmund will save tens of millions in total which will help the protect BVB as one of the city of Dortmund's biggest employers amid the coronavirus crisis," the club said in a statement, with Watzke adding that it was a "valuable sign of solidarity to the public and to our 850 employees."

Dortmund fans, meanwhile, continue to take care of the local community. The three leading ultra groups have offered their services to risk groups or those in quarantine in the city. They handle up to 15 requests in their spare time run errands as well as shop for food at the supermarket or medication at the pharmacy.

Last weekend, Dortmund supporters got together as the club organised a digital match day enabling pubs, currywurst places and kebab shops on the way to the stadium to collect donations with the hashtag #BorussiaVerbindet, or "Borussia unites. "

Over €70,000 was raised for a total of 86 locations around the city of Dortmund.

Source: espn.co.uk

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