Real Madrid midfielder Toni Kroos said he was against wage cuts for players in the current crisis caused by coronavirus - a day before the club confirmed salary reductions.
While Barcelona and Atletico Madrid have both announced ERTEs (Temporary Employment Regulation Files) with their players' salaries cut by 70 per cent amid the shutdown, Los Blancos opted for cuts of between 10-20% on Wednesday.
"A wage reduction is like a donation in vain. Or for the club," Kroos told German radio station SWR Sport on a podcast, a day before Madrid's announcement. "I'm in favour of the full salary being paid and doing sensible things with it."
The 30-year-old also said he believes the enforced hiatus could end up changing football.
"Many clubs lack planned income," he said. "It also depends how long everything is halted. If, for example, the game returns in May, I'm sure solutions will be found. If we need to stop until the winter, some [clubs] may be unable to. That would change football as we know it."
And on the transfer market, he said: "It's questionable whether some sums of money can be paid. I think there will be problems. More for some and less for others. Maybe it's not so bad because everything had been on an extreme level."
