Hawthorns revolt over bonus plan

13 April 2012

The scent of a players' mutiny filled the air at the Hawthorns yesterday as West Bromwich Albion lurched towards yet another summer crisis.

After a close-season that has been taken up with a bitter boardroom power struggle, it was the turn of the playing staff to vent their anger after the club ripped up the bonus schedule it had agreed shortly after Premiership promotion was secured.

They had been told the £15,000-awin per man incentive scheme put into place by former chairman Paul Thompson was no longer valid and that they had to accept an alternative put forward by his replacement Jeremy Peace.

It was backed by manager Gary Megson, who yesterday signed a new three-year contract that will double his salary. But the players are angry at proposals which could see any extra payments slashed by up to £5,000 over the course of next season.

Moreover, any add-ons to their salaries would not be paid on a match-by-match basis, but instead in a lump sum, dependent on avoiding relegation.

That has infuriated the playing staff, who are thinking about calling in their union.

One player said: 'We are not being greedy. But there was an agreement. That has now been taken away and the players have been told it's non-negotiable. It's fair to say this has caused a lot of disappointment.'

It is understood that Albion have set aside an amount of money that will be distributed in proportion to how many matches each individual plays. If the club remain in the Premiership, that money will then be distributed. If they are relegated, the players forfeit any right to the cash.

Megson, a fan of incentive-based contracts, said: 'The bonus scheme mooted two months ago was unworkable. If we had implemented it, we would have struggled to do a lot of other things.

'This new scheme is loaded at the back-end because we cannot be a football club that pays massive bonuses during a season and then maybe not succeed in what we are trying to achieve.

'I have told all the players that no one will get very, very rich at West Brom's expense because I've looked from afar at some players earning obscene amounts of money - only for their clubs to be relegated.

'If this club does well, individual players will also do well. If it doesn't, they won't. There has to be some consequence to their actions.

And this offer is non-negotiable. Unless you are a massive club, you don't have a choice in this.

'My hometown club, Sheffield Wednesday, have put all their eggs in one basket. Now they are struggling to stay in the division below us and some players have more money than the club. That cannot be right.'

Brendan Batson, who may have been called in by the players in his role with the PFA had he not switched jobs to take over as chief executive at the Hawthorns four weeks ago, defended the new plans.

He said: 'The players have contracts and the bonus schedule forms part of that. We want to recognise what they achieved last season and reward success.

'Something else was in place before the current board took over but we think this is a much fairer deal all round.

'Obviously, I cannot predict what the players will do. But they have contracts and the deadline for this is the first day of the Premiership season, when they must be agreed.

Hawthorns revolt over bonus plan

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