Incredible! A Club decides to pay the salary to its players with bonds

Olympique Lyonnais have found an innovative idea to deal with the crisis caused by the pandemic in the world of football, paying their players with club bonds. Half of the squad, male and female, have accepted this option which will allow the club to avoid having to reach into its pocket at a time when income is scarce.

With this decision, the entity chaired by Jean-Michel Aulas seeks to better cope with the difficult financial situation that his club and French football in general are going through. The pandemic forced last season to stop prematurely, which left Lyon out of European competitions for the first time since 1996, with the consequent economic damage caused. Added to this is the decrease in television income from the national championship, after the Spanish operator Mediapro terminated its contract and, urgently, an agreement was reached with Canal Plus that pays half of what was initially planned.

Like the rest of the French clubs, Lyon has also seen its matches played behind closed doors, without being able to enter the money from the box office. To face this situation, in addition to salary renegotiations, the president agreed with part of the staff to pay with shares, which allows him to preserve his treasury. The payment in shares is between 5 and 25% of salary and is applied from February, and can go until the end of the season, depending on sanitary conditions, the club indicated.

Although for now only half of the squads have taken advantage of this possibility. And them assure that their doors are open for others to do so in the future. "Olympique Lyonnais are pleased to have reached an agreement with their squads and would like to especially thank all those who have spontaneously accepted this principle," the club said in a statement published this week. According to their accounts, this operation will not imply a reduction in the profits of the players, given the stability of the club's shares, which trade above 2 euros per title.

In addition, payment with bonds can have other positive consequences, such as a greater adherence of male and female players to the sports project, indicate some specialists in sports economics. Indeed, the better the team's sporting career, the more the club's shares will rise. With ten days to go to the end of the league, Lyon is third in the French championship standings, just 3 points behind Lille, with two points ahead of Paris Saint-Germain.