Get Real or Go On Dole! Says Macca

By: Bill Osborne
Date: 01/05/2002

IN A hard-hitting statement to the Grimsby Telegraph today, John McDermott Grimsby Town's captain said that his team-mates must take a pay cut or join the dole queue adding that clubs will survive the current crisis as long as players bear the brunt of the cost-cutting.

"The money from ITV has only been in the game a year and the clubs survived well before this TV money came along" he said.

"The players have been spoiled a bit by clubs promising this and that with the TV money. Loads of players have decided there's no way they're coming to what they've had before. But they've given us candy and now they're taking it away. A lot of players are upset about it, but footballers' wages have gone sky high all through the League."

"We'll have to go on what we were on before TV and it's either that or go on the dole queue. Clubs can't afford to do it any more. Everyone will be in the same boat and we'll have do it. If that happens, and everyone does it, then fair enough."

"If we'd been relegated I would have got a pay cut anyway because it's in my contract. It's like a normal job, if you do well and get promoted you expect a bit of a pay rise. But if everybody in the first division were all on the same money, I don't think many people would complain."

".… Just ask players at Lincoln City or anyone in the lower division and they would rip your arm off to be in our position…."

"If you're already under contract and your wages are fixed in your contract then I think the club have to honour it. But when you're out of contract you'll have to think 'that's the offer, I either take it or move on'. If you're out of contract you can't expect to be on tons of money. That's the way life is at the moment - especially at our club."

"Just ask players at Lincoln City or anyone in the lower division and they would rip your arm off to be in our position. Sometimes you just have to be grateful you've got a job. Every player wants to get the best he can, but if someone has been offered a contract I don't think it's the time to be moaning."

"When you put the Teletext on and see how many players are being released you know that reality will have to sink in. A contract is a contract, and players are getting paid for something they like doing. If players can get a better deal elsewhere then fair enough, but if they want to stay at a club they will have to put up with it."

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