Soccer: Dooley fears for players

Sheffield United chairman Derek Dooley fears players will have to be released if the ITV Digital dispute is not solved.

Football League clubs have budgeted for money from the television company that is unlikely to arrive ITV went into administration this week with several expected to collapse.

Dooley said: ‘‘We are fortunate to have between eight and 10 players who will be out of contract at the end of the season.

‘‘Whilst we may have expected to re-negotiate extensions with some of them, we may now need to let them all go to reduce the wage bill.

‘‘It is fair to say that clubs do not yet know what will happen, and some may quickly go the wall.

‘‘The loss of such a sizeable amount of expected revenue is bound to be a real blow,’’ he told the club’s official website www.sufc.co.uk.