Norwich defend furloughing of staff due to coronavirus

Premier League strugglers rwich City have defended ir decision to use British government's furlough scheme for 200 n-playing staff after season was suspended due to coronavirus pandemic. With vast swas of British industry shut down because of coronavirus, UK government launched a scheme that sees 80 percent of ws up to a maximum of ?2,500 ($3,000) a month guaranteed during ecomic crisis caused by pandemic. rwich, who were bottom when campaign was suspended, and Newcastle are only Premier League clubs currently using job retention scheme.

rwich defend furloughing of staff due to virus

Bournemouth, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur performed U-turns due to a vocal backlash after initially anuncing y too would take vant of scheme. rwich say suspension of football will cost m between ?18 million and ?35 million. " decision we me was in best interests of club and its staff," chief operating officer Ben Kensell told BBC Rio rfolk. "We've been very transparent that we're run in a self-financed manner. "We generate a turver of ?123m - ?93m of that is brocast, and we've spent ?125m this year - and that's how we run club, "Ultimately, if we h available cashflow to t have to take up schemes n, like or football clubs have, we would." Canaries hope to make ?2.5 million of savings and have agreed with British tax authorities to delay ?18 million of repayments.

rwich players have t followed le of fellow professionals at Watford, Sheffield United, Southampton or West Ham in agreeing to w deferrals or taking a pay cut as most of Arsenal squ have agreed to. However, players, he coach Daniel Farke, executive committee and directors have donated more than ?200,000 towards local initiatives. Kensell said furloughing staff w could hopefully prevent much more traumatic step of making people redundant once some form of rmality returns.

" difference is we're running it as a business and we're running it best way we believe will help it for future," said Kensell.

"It's also about our staff. What we don't want is a raft of redundancies.

"We knew we'd get criticised as a result of it; what we're t going to do is take a different view on that. We'll stick to our guns and we believe we are doing it for right reasons.

"We've got best owners (Delia Smith and her husband Michael Wynn-Jones) in football -- that's a fact. We haven't got richest owners but we like to think we're doing things right way."