A friend just sent me this, apologies if it’s been posted before, I’m always late for the ****ing party...
Oops! Just seen it elsewhere....I’m going back to bed
Section 1: The Playing Squad - Four players - Eric Lichaj, Stephen Kingsley, Jackson Irvine, Marcus Maddison - will not remain at the club beyond June 30. - Our understanding is that these players turned up for training earlier this week to be informed by manager Grant McCann that they would henceforth not be part of the firstteam training group. Ehab Allam also attended the training ground to formally release the players and inform them they would no longer be involved. The developments took the playing squad by "complete surprise." - In Lichaj's case, the defender had a one year contract option to extend but the club insisted that he must reduce his salary by almost 50 per cent to secure the extension. Negotiations included an option presented from his side to extend by a year on current terms but to include a clause to leave this summer, in the event the club were relegated. This would therefore have protected the club's finances. Hull, however, declined to agree to this. - The players who have chosen to leave were not offered an extra month's wages into August to complete the season but were instead asked to play on in July during what would ordinarily be the month of severance pay following the expiry of a contract in June. - Players (with the exception of one individual in the first-team) have agreed to take a 25 per cent wage deferral for a four month period, to be repaid by the end of the year, after initially rejecting a 20 per cent wage cut. - The club's highest earner is £17,000-per-week player Kevin Stewart. His contract expires at the end of this season and should the club trigger an option to extend, it would rise to £20,000-per-week. - Hull will this summer only spend up to £7,000 per week on salaries for summer signings, with suggestions offers are even more likely at around £5,000 per week. - Intermediaries say Hull playing contracts in recent times have been known in the industry to be frugal and "basic", featuring only a "basic wage and win bonuses" but no signing-on fees. - The local newspaper, the Hull Daily Mail, has been banned from the club following negative coverage. - The Chair of the Supporters Trust Geoff Bielby says: "It is a continuation of the past four years. It has been a steady managed decline. There has been a stream of very good players leaving the club or not taking up offers of contracts. Our owners are now well used to offering short and low-paid contracts and players vote with their feet. Not just players - we lost head coaches - many stating a lack of ambition. The owners decided to cash in on Bowen and Grosicki who had scored something like three quarters of our goals this season. For anyone for whom the penny was yet to drop, then the deadline day of the transfer window should have made it crystal clear the owners were cashing in on what they can and preparing for League One. It was a hammer blow to the mentality of the squad. The biggest frustration this week in losing Lichaj and Irvine is losing big club players, captain and vicecaptain, what is going wrong? The same as for years: Maybe there is one reason: the owners. The club is just an asset within their portfolio of businesses. It is a cash cow." - Bielby also alleges the club sought to exclude the Trust from dialogue with the owners as long as he remained the chair, as per meetings and correspondence in 2018, although he acknowledges an email indicating a willingness to improve relations from Ehab Allam in late 2019.