London, June 29 (IANS): Citing a shortfall of 300 million pounds ($370 million) over four years due to the COVID-19 pandemic shutting down the sport and restarting behind closed doors with no fans in stadiums, the English Football Association is set to make 82 people redundant, it said in a statement.
"COVID-19 has had a significant impact on The FA and we now have a greater understanding of the long-term and irreversible effect of the pandemic on our finances," the statement on FA's official website, thefa.com, read.
"The high level of uncertainty in our landscape means that we have had to plan for a whole range of potential scenarios. As previously communicated, we are currently planning for potential losses of approximately £300million. As a not-for-profit organisation, this will hit us hard.
"Following much consideration of the situation we find ourselves in, we have reached a position where we have formulated proposals to begin a consultation process around reducing the size of our overall team at The FA. These proposals are to reshape the organisation with the level of resource available in this smaller budget.
"Today we are proposing to make 124 positions redundant. Because we halted recruitment the day we left the offices in March, we are able to take 42 vacant positions out of the structure, which means that we are proposing to remove 82 roles from the organisation.
"We recognise that this is an incredibly difficult time for those employees who have been affected by these proposals and we will do everything we can to support them during a consultation period, which will start soon," the statement from Mark Bullingham, FA chief executive, added.
The FA owned Wembley Stadium was due to host seven games at the European Championship including the semifinals and finals next month but the tournament was postponed by a year.
The events such as concerts and two NFL regular season games, that were due to be staged at English soccer's 90,000-capacity national stadium this year have also been called off.
