Barcelona said on Monday that the club's board of directors and professional sports teams agreed on imposing a pay cut due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, according to Egypt Today. The club's official website released a statement informing their fans that a 70 percent pay cut will be applied on Barcelona's football first team in order to guarantee the payment of the non-sporting staff at the club. The statement on the club's website read as follows: "The FC Barcelona Board of Directors, the members of all of the professional sports teams and most of the basketball team have reached an agreement for a reduction in their salaries during the period of the state of alarm due to Covid-19. "In the case of the football first team, the reduction will be over 70 percent of that originally agreed with the club. This additional contribution by the team, together with the contribution that the club itself shall make, will guarantee 100 percent of the salaries of all non-sporting staff at the club, which will be submitted for ERTE (temporary redundancy) this week. "The club wishes to express its gratitude to all of the professional athletes for their implication in such an exceptional situation that has been caused by this health crisis." On a similar note, football clubs like Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund in Germany and Juventus in Italy also agreed to impose similar pay cuts due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. Ever since the outbreak of the coronavirus in Wuhan, China during late November 2019, around 781,000 people were infected and about 37,000 people died because of the disease. As a result, several countries such as Italy, Spain, France, and England suspended their sports competitions due to the coronavirus being widespread among around 200 countries and territories.
