Deferred wage repayments begin for Hibs players and staff

Hibs players and staff who agreed to defer wages after last season was brought to a premature end will have the first half of the sum owed to them paid into their accounts with this month’s salaries.

Hibs will make honour their agreement to repay half of the money due to staff and players who deferred wages during the coronavirus lockdown in this month's salary run. Photo by Bill Murray/SNS Group

At the onset of the coronavirus crisis, emergency measures were taken to manage finances and help steer the club through uncharted waters.

That saw the majority of staff and players furloughed, while there were also redundancies.

The unprecedented nature of the pandemic’s financial burden also saw the club ask many members of staff to agree to defer between 20-50 per cent of their wages, with the promise that they would be reimbursed in two lump sums, at the end of this calendar year and then at the end of the 2020/21 season.

According to chief executive Leeann Dempster, speaking back in April, the hope was that things would have returned to normal by this stage of the year, making it easier to repay any shortfall in salaries.

As it stands, though, Scottish clubs remain hamstrung by the ongoing fans’ shut-out, and the commercial impact of the Covid crisis, although the rolling out of a vaccine has heightened hopes that some supporters could be allowed back into Easter Road before the end of the current campaign.

Regardless, having withstood the immediate cashflow pressure while managing to remain competitive on the pitch, staff have been told that the repayment plan will still be honoured. The money is due to hit their accounts this month along with their December wage, and the second payment still scheduled for the summer.

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