Arsenal Players To Lose £5M If They Fail To Qualify For Champions League

Arsenal players will "lose out on bonuses" worth about £5M ($6.2M) if they fail to qualify for the Champions League, according to Gary Jacob of the LONDON TIMES. The club rewards the squad when it reaches the group stage of the competition "to the tune of about" £200,000 ($247,500) per player, "though that is not evenly split." Arsenal is four points behind Man City in fourth, with a game in hand. The club has qualified for the Champions League for the past 20 seasons in a row. The competition was worth about £46M in payments from UEFA last season, while the club also profited from matchday income. Tottenham Hotspur has a "similar policy on bonuses." By contrast, ManU assumes that it will qualify for the Champions League and its "players take a wage cut if they do not make it." That sum worked out at about £14M at the end of last season -- about £500,000 per player (LONDON TIMES, 4/8).