Arsenal Supporters' Trust call for club staff facing redundancy to receive 'as much support as possible'

Arsenal announced on Wednesday that they were proposing 55 redundancies at the club
Getty Images
George Flood5 August 2020

The Arsenal Supporters' Trust (AST) have called on the members of club staff facing redundancy to be given as much financial support as possible.

Earlier on Wednesday, Arsenal announced that they were seeking to make 55 redundancies in order to further reduce costs due to the significant reduction in broadcast, matchday and commercial revenue caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

"Our aim has been to protect the jobs and base salaries of our people for as long as we possibly can," Arsenal's head of football Raul Sanllehi and managing director Vinai Venkatesham said in a detailed joint statement.

"Unfortunately, we have now come to the point where we are proposing 55 redundancies.

"We do not make these proposals lightly and have looked at every aspect of the club and our expenditure before reaching this point. We are now entering the required 30-day consultation period on these proposals.

"We know this is upsetting and difficult for our dedicated staff and our focus is on managing this as sensitively as possible."

Arsenal had already taken other measures to try and soften the financial blow inflicted by the Covid-19 crisis.

In April, players and coaching staff voluntarily accepted a 12.5 per cent pay cut, while executives at the Emirates also agreed to trim their salaries by a third for the next 12 months.

Arsenal also restructured their stadium debt and, per Wednesday's statement, stopped almost all capital spending and "strictly controlled" their discretionary operating expenditure.

The Gunners - who missed out on the Champions League again for next season after their lowest Premier League finish since 1995 but did qualify for the Europa League courtesy of their FA Cup Final win over Chelsea - did not choose to furlough any club staff using the government's coronavirus job retention scheme.

Responding to the impending redundancies, AST expressed their disappointment that the aforementioned savings had not prevented such measures from becoming necessary and said they would be contacting Arsenal in order to discuss the issues and emphasise the need for those being made redundant to receive the maximum financial support allowed.

In Pictures | Arsenal vs Chelsea, FA Cup Final 2020

1/63

"AST is sad to see the news that 55 members of staff are to be made redundant," the trust said via social media. "Arsenal players have contributed to savings at the club by taking voluntary wage cuts.

"We had hoped these savings would be used to ensure all Arsenal staff are looked after in these difficult times

"It is also really important that those staff let go are given as much support as possible in terms of their redundancy package. We will be contacting Arsenal to stress these points."