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Cardiff under pressure to pay living wage

by Kadeem Simmonds

A letter has been sent by the Cardiff City Supporters’ Trust, union leaders and Cardiff Citizens community leaders to ask chairman Mehmet Dalman to announce that Cardiff will become the first football club to pay all their staff the living wage before the season ends.

The living wage is currently £7.65 an hour but non-playing staff are paid the national minimum wage, a measly £6.31 an hour.

With a wage bill of over £18 million for the players, an extra £1.34 should be nothing to a club expected to get £40m in parachute payments for their relegation to the Championship.

The letter also states that young people will march to the last home game of the season this Sunday against Chelsea to hear the answer from the club as well hand over the funds donated by the local community, who have paid the £1.34 difference between the living and minimum wage. 

El Bashir Idris, a young leader with Cardiff Citizens, said: “The players, the Club itself and the city’s economy have all benefited from the Club’s success to the tune of millions of pounds. 

“Yet essential matchday staff are paid rock-bottom rates. That can’t be right — and we are calling on the Club to announce that they will introduce the Living Wage soon.”

Tim Hartley, chair of Cardiff City Supporters Trust, added: “The minimum wage is just that, the legal minimum. The Cardiff City Supporters Trust believes that the club not only can, but should, pay the living wage to all its staff.”

A hospitality worker at the club speaking on condition of anonymity said: “An extra £1.34 an hour might not make a difference to a Premiership footballer but it will make a massive difference to me and the staff who are struggling to support our families and make ends meet.”

As well as a letter, a petition has also been started in support of the campaign at http://citizens.nationbuilder.com/ccfc_petition.

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