All full time employees have contracts.
It shouldn’t be one rule for the players and another for the general staff.
Its a bit pointless discussing this any further since you're of the opinion that players should be allowed to just hand in their resignation letters and leave clubs whenever they please. Do you not want clubs to have stability?
And why is discrimination mentioned in this thread?
Ok firrst of all, for discirimination to be a thing, there needs to be an unjust treatment in place. Currently non-essential personell has been either laid off or offered wage reduction since they are
not working. Periiod. Jobs are not being performed. If you can not execute your job, a company should not HAVE to pay you regardless. This principle either applies to both football clubs and clothing stores, or it applies to no one.
Remember that the football players contracted to the club are still very much at work. They are training and fullfilling their contractual obligations within reason. In principle rulings, the size of a purse do not matter.
There is a difference between permanent and fixed term employees. The EU Framework agreement sets out the principle of the justification for fixed term contract in sports by UNICE, ETUC, CEEP in 1999. The legality of Fixed Term employment in football has already been subject to a legal battle in Germany, The Müller case Germany where the player demanded to be treated like a fulltime employee due to getting frustrated that Mainz did not allow him to reach a certain number of games to extend his contract after being long term injured. He actually won through in the lower courts but the Rhineland-Palatinate Higher Labour Court overturned.
The principle reasoning for a football player being on fixed contracts are:
Club uncertainty - a player is not successfull indefinitely
The need to continually refreh the squad
Club entertainment. Sports is entertainment. Renewal is required.
The players benefit since players are better protected against early contract termination following injuries.
Fixed term contracts are simply different in form and nature than permament contracts, and its time that everyone understands that.
Do I think that players should be paid 100% while people are being laid off? No, of course not. But these things need to be put into the contract language. We have no fixed rules for Pandemics, everyone are learning as they go here.
I expect the PFA, FA and the players themselves to announce voluntary paycuts any day now in clubs that had to lay off staff, following the principles set by major competing clubs.