Sunderland ask stars to wait for pay

Colin Young|Daily Mail14 April 2012

Sunderland chairman Bob Murray yesterday insisted the club are not on the verge of a financial crisis, despite opening talks with the players' union to defer payment of wages.

Sunderland called in the PFA to ask top earners to delay collecting a portion of their salaries until next year. The talks, which are still going on, have yet to be approved by the players.

In fact, club officials hope most of their highest-paid stars will leave before they kick off at Nottingham Forest on August 9.

Aston Villa have held talks with Gavin McCann and Thomas Sorensen over a joint £5million move and other crowd favourites are expected to go soon.

Murray last night moved to allay fears that the club will be forced into administration following relegation from the Premiership.

He said: 'We have been in discussions with the union for the last three months as part of the planning process to deal with the financial implication of relegation.

'Our discussions have been completely open and transparent and have included the club's bankers, who remain incredibly supportive. It is both normal and necessary to involve the PFA so that they can provide independent advice and support to the players during this process.

'The PFA are also currently in talks with, or providing help and support to, more than 40 clubs, so Sunderland are no different from the majority of clubs in that respect.

'The football market is quite depressed and we are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But we are resolute to deal with it.

'There are a number of pieces to the jigsaw in restructuring our finances and this is just one of them. They include making cost-cuts across the business, which sadly included 70 staff redundancies in the last two months, and the players are also a big part of the club and therefore part of the jigsaw.'

PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor added: 'It is not a question of contracts being cancelled. We were very impressed by the attitude of the players at the club. They are being realistic and practical about the situation.'

As well as McCann and Sorensen, Sunderland expect Bernt Haas' £500,000 move to West Bromwich to be revived this week, while Blackburn have travelled to see Claudio Reyna perform for the United States in the Gold Cup and Leeds manager Peter Reid wants to raid his former club for Matt Piper, who he signed from Leicester last year for £3m.

Despite interest from Middlesbrough and Rangers, Kevin Phillips has yet to attract a firm offer and the former England striker missed Saturday's 4-0 win over Durham City with a slight knock.

John Oster, Jody Craddock, Michael Proctor and Kevin Kilbane all scored in the club's first official win under Mick McCarthy.

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