Quinn insists on relegation clauses
Future Sunderland signings will be expected to demonstrate their commitment to the club by signing relegation clauses in their contracts.
Club chairman Niall Quinn has revealed that from now on, Sunderland will not be in the vulnerable position they were a few years ago – and which Newcastle are in now – of being relegated with a host of star players on contracts which guarantee them massive wages in the lower divisions.
Those contracts can push a club to the brink of bankruptcy, or even into it, and Quinn says that Sunderland have now reached a position where they can ask new signings to show how much they want to play for the club by being happy to agree practical contracts.
"We try very hard when it comes to relegation clauses for the players," he said. "We've probably got to the stage where we're 90 per cent there and for new players now, we would insist on it.
"That would tell you what their intentions are across the table too.
"I was probably guilty as a player. I didn't understand the mechanics behind the scenes for a football club. You would go in looking for your deal and all the rest.
"I'm not trying to put players 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 costs us a signing, I would stick with that.
"A top four club needn't have it. Man City maybe needn't have it but because of where we are on our journey, we have to be smart."
Quinn says that under his stewardship the club will never experience the heartache it witnessed in 2003 when dozens of workers at the club lost their jobs in the wake of relegation.
And he said that even if Sunderland had gone down on the last day of last season, instead of Newcastle and Middlesbrough, then the damage at the Stadium of Light would have been kept to a minimum.
"We had it planned for quite a while that relegation would be put more on the players than the staff here," he revealed.
"The players' salaries would have been trimmed, not the staff.
"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."
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Friday 10 February 2012
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