Quinn: players will take the hit

SUNDERLAND chairman Niall Quinn has been praised for his decision to protect the club’s lower-paid employees at the expense of millionaire players in the event of relegation.

Had the Black Cats followed Newcastle and Middlesbrough into the Championship at the end of last season, Quinn had a contingency plan which would have seen the wage bill automatically trimmed without the need to lay off staff.

Indeed, Quinn will insist on relegation clauses being included in all new player contracts. His approach is one management experts believe could benefit other clubs.

Ruth Spellman, chief executive of the Chartered Management Institute, maintained: “Leaders are easy targets when times are tough – they are, after all, the face of an organisation. But with leadership comes the responsibility of steadying the ship if times become uncomfortable for the club.

“It means making tough decisions and although they are easy to criticise, there is a clear rationale behind Niall Quinn’s idea. The point is that to organisations, no matter what sector they are in, must focus on strategic business needs; that means identifying whose skills are critical and who will be beneficial in the long-term.

“What really matters is identifying the skills that will see an organisation through change and then building these competencies.”

Newcastle have had to make around 120 people redundant in the wake of relegation, while Sunderland underwent a similar restructuring following their drop back into the Football League at the end of the 2002-03 season.

Quinn had brought an end to his playing career earlier in that campaign as his injuries took their toll, and he could only look on as people he had got to know during his time on Wearside lost their jobs.

“We had it planned for quite a while that relegation would be put more on the players than the staff here.

“It wouldn’t have been a knee-jerk reaction to do that.

“The players’ salaries would have been trimmed, not the staff and we had a survival plan in place.

“I remember what happened when so many members of staff lost their jobs here and that was the cruellest thing of all, seeing so many of the non-football staff pack their bags and have to go.

“That hurt the very epicentre of the club. You don’t feel so sorry for the player who has to go and drive his Ferrari out of the gates.

“We were determined we would have that plan in place.”

Quinn and manager Steve Bruce, who will get down to work in earnest next week, are currently identifying transfer targets, and any player they sign will be asked to take a drop in pay should the worst happen.

Quinn said: “For new players now, we would insist. That would tell you what their intentions are across the table, too.

“I’m not trying to put them in a weakened position, but there should be some consideration given to, ‘Yes, I’m going to give you all this money, but if you fail, next year I can’t’.

“It’s as simple as that, and even if it cost us a signing, I would stick with that, definitely.

“In the modern world at a club like ours, yes. A top-four club needn’t have it, Man City maybe needn’t have it, but because of where we are in our journey, we have to be smart.”

Quinn revealed when he unveiled Bruce earlier this month that he and owner Ellis Short were hoping for a more comfortable campaign this time around and an end to the annual fight for survival.

But he remains realistic about the club’s ambitions.

He said: “If we could kick that on and have a comfortable year in the Premier League – and by that I mean understanding from a very early stage that we weren’t going to get relegated – you would then see what this club was capable of.

“Are we going to get full houses every week, do we need to kick on? That has to be the aim and it’s a reasonable aim. It’s not a stupid aim.

“There’s no point talking about finishing in the top four at the moment. It’s nonsense. It’s just so, so hard to talk like that.”