Al Hilal’s players have launched an initiative to reduce their salaries by half during the suspension of football amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The Saudi Arabian giants, the reigning Asian champions, announced the news early on Monday. The Saudi Pro League was suspended last month, 22 rounds into the season, with Hilal leading the standings by six points from champions Al Nassr.
The Riyadh club, 15-time domestic champions, confirmed their first-team players had decided to forgo 50 per cent of their monthly wages until competition returns.
“The initiative came in an effort by the players and the coaching and administration staffs to enable the club to avoid any expected economic impacts resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic,” read a statement on the club’s social media accounts.
“The club board of directors have praised the initiative of Al Hilal first-team members, which reflects their sense of responsibility and their solidarity with their club in all circumstances.”
One of the most popular clubs on the continent, Hilal won the Asian Champions League last November to end a 19-year wait for the title.
Earlier this month, star striker Bafetimbi Gomis, top scorer in last season's tournament, called on Saudis to follow the government's advice and stay at home.
On Sunday, the confirmed number of coronavirus cases in the Kingdom passed 4,400. The death toll from the pandemic rose by seven to 59.
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
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Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
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Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
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