‘Selfish and money-driven’ – Robinson blasts Spurs defender’s agent for comments

Former Tottenham goalkeeper, Paul Robinson, has blasted Toby Alderweireld’s agent for the comments he made regarding players taking wage cuts.

While the Premier League stars have come together to launch a collective initiative to help generate funds for the National Health Service during the coronavirus pandemic (BBC Sport), there is so far no movement regarding the proposed wage cuts for players.

The PFA have insisted that reducing playing staff wages will cost the government a substantial sum as players would be paying less in taxes.

Alderweireld’s agent, Stijn Francis, further escalated the row by controversially suggesting that players should also be allowed to break the terms of their contracts if the clubs themselves can’t honour them (Guardian).

Robinson claimed that it was an outrageous comment given the circumstances. Speaking to Football Insider, he said: “The agent’s comments are outlandish, selfish and money-driven.

“There are a lot more important things going on in the world at the moment. That is an outrageous comment. I do not think that has got any space.”

While the former England goalkeeper did admit that players are sometimes unfairly singled out, he insisted that most would be more than willing to cooperate in order to help people who are more vulnerable.

Robinson added: “Players have been wrongly singled out. Players are more than willing to do it and structured it in a way that they would have done without having been singled out.

“If any player does not want to or wants to try and use that as a tool to get out of a contract it is disgusting. I do not think any player would do and I hope he has been strongly misquoted.”

Spurs Web Opinion

In fairness to Alderweireld’s agent, I don’t think he was actually suggesting that clubs should allow players to leave without honouring their contract. He may have been making a larger point about the problems with clubs not honouring their contracts. As things stand, it looks like the players are determined to do all they can to fight wage-cuts.

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