I’m torn on this.
On one hand, I really dislike the hypocrisy of people who are ardent supporters of capitalism until the industry of football gets mentioned. With that in mind, ownership is definitely within their legal rights to use the scheme to protect their business.
However there’s the moral issue. Our majority shareholder is a tax evading billionaire, the club has turned a massive profit for the last 2 years, and the wages-to-turnover ratio is much lower than our competitors. The club is based in one of the poorest wards in the entire country, and I would assume is a big employer of locals . The optics, PR, an erosion of local goodwill make this so, so bad.
Levy was right in his statements that these aren’t normal times and things will be different once this is over, but I think the club board has completely misread the mood of the room.
There’s also the issue of being seen to be trying to back players/coaches into a corner and hanging them out to dry.