With their luxury lifestyles and bulging pay packets, Premier League football players are not renowned for having problems with remuneration.
However, this does not currently apply to Portsmouth FC players whose wages have been delayed three times over the course of four months. On Thursday, the players were finally paid the estimated £1.8 million they were owed for the month of December.
According to reports in the Guardian newspaper Nick Cusack, senior executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, said: "When two teams take the field, it's 11 versus 11 and you would expect all 22 players to have been paid. If one set out of 11 has not [been paid] then that can call into question the commitment of the team and therefore the integrity of the game itself."
A spokesman from Portsmouth FC acknowledged that the postponement of wages had taken place amid a change of ownership. He also said that in banking terms each delay in wages being paid was no more than four days.
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