A senior official at an unnamed Premier League club says players should not receive their wages if they refuse to return to training tomorrow.

The club official told Sky Sports News if players are concerned and do not want to train, then clubs should not pay their wages.

“I really don’t think they should be paid,” the club official said. “We are not sure what the situation is under their contracts at the moment.

“If you asked people in the street would you train and play football against people being tested twice a week, would you do it for £60,000 a week, they’d all say yes. It makes me very cross.”

He says he expects “most, if not all” of his players to return this week, although he estimated that up to 50 per cent have concerns about moving onto full contact training and playing games again from the middle of next month.

“I would hope that we can start small group training this week,” the club owner said. “The plan is then to move onto full contact training after a week.

“I’m expecting most, if not all our players back this week, but a lot of them are worried about playing games and contact training. I’d say it’s maybe as high as 40 or 50 per cent of them.

“All our players were tested this weekend with a view to training on Tuesday after we get the results late on Monday.”

Claret and Hugh say:

It is hard not to have sympathy with this view from one club owner if Premier League players refuse to train or go on strike they should not be paid. Maybe the regulations and player contracts should be changed so players can be furloughed on the maximum £625 per week. It is not a case of forcing or blackmailing highly paid sportsmen its a choice whether they want to receive their inflated pay packets.  Like most things in football money talks and I would expect many of the player’s concerns to evaporate overnight if they thought they wouldn’t get paid.

We wait for the outcome of today’s Premier League meeting but we would be surprised if they don’t vote for a return to training from tomorrow and even more surprised if players boycott the return to training.