Manager Derek McInnes spoke with the AFC Media team to give further details of the deferral process agreed by the players and management:

“The club are trying to manage their way through a crisis and a unique situation.

“We all understand where we are.

“These are challenging times for everyone at the minute.

“We all feel that it is incumbent on everyone who works at the club to do their bit.

“Whether it is the Chairman and the Board, the staff and the players, we have all got to do what is necessary here.

“Although that was the thought process, we still had to do a lot of work to get to this stage.

Fairness

“We have had really good leadership.

“Dave Cormack is working very hard. He, along with Steven Gunn our Football Operations Director and Kevin McIvor our Finance Director, they have been absolutely brilliant throughout this.

“Thankfully through the discussions with Kevin, Steven and Dave over last weekend, we got to the stage where we knew the severity of the situation, we knew the figures that we needed to try and get to, but above everything, and even knowing how challenging that was going to be, there was a real need for fairness.

“That is what we were all working towards for all staff.

“Whilst it is not nice having wages deferred, bonuses deferred – money in which players are entitled to; it was trying to make sure any wage deferrals were fair.

“We set a figure, and anyone who earned above that figure, we would approach them with the deferral which was necessary to help the club.

Football Staff

“Once that decision had been made, I started speaking to my staff.

“So I spoke to them first and got the full support from my team which was important.

“They are very experienced. They know these are challenging times and fully appreciated the seriousness of the situation we are in.

“Then once I had spoken to my players, we had full support of everyone.

The Players

“We are working for a great club. We are working for good people.

“The players know that and know what we were trying to do so there was no real surprise when I spoke to them as a group.

“They were really keen to help.

“The players then went and spoke amongst themselves, they took advice from PFA Scotland and we arrived at where we wanted to arrive at on Friday night with full agreement.

“I could not have a better bunch of boys. Joe Lewis is my captain and I also have some very good senior players here. But every single player wanted to do their bit.

“Every single player wanted to help and wanted to be supportive.

Commitment from Everyone

“From those initial conversations, to where we are now, a lot of work has been done.

But behind it all, from the football staff, non footballing staff at Pittodrie, and from elsewhere at the club, there has been brilliant commitment from them as well to join in with the players and management.

“There is full support amongst all the employees.

“Then there is the commitment from Tom Crotty, Dave and the Board, investing more money, at a time when money is everything at the minute.

“And also the commitment from the supporters to be energetic and passionate in trying to help the club.

“We are grateful that the supporters are doing their bit trying to raise money and to increase the season ticket sales. Everyone is doing what they can financially to help.

“So there has been a huge effort from everybody.

“It shows that in really difficult circumstances, the power of people pulling together, the ability to agree things rather than argue, the ability to self-sacrifice and to think of others instead of yourself are the key messages to come out of this.

“Hopefully the gesture made by everyone helps our club.

“Everyone is playing their part to help the club through this.

Some Certainty

“The financial plan gives us a bit of certainty.

“This is not something that we wanted to have to do.

“It is not something we have taken lightly.

“Dave the Board would not have been wanting to have these conversations with myself. I didn’t want to be having these conversations with the players.

“Although we don’t have certainty from the footballing authorities yet, and we don’t have certainties over when this virus is going to relent and when we can start to get back to our normal lives; what the deferral does do is allow the club over the next four months to have a clearer pathway in what are still going to be very challenging times for everybody.

“I think the symbolic gesture and the message sent out to the wider support and community is that we are doing all we can to make sure the club steers through this crisis because our club is so important to us all.

“The combined message helps deal with the uncertainty over the next few months and hopefully in a few weeks’ time we might have a better idea of when we are back playing football again.

“All we can hope for is that we can get back playing football sooner rather than later, as this will mean we are winning the battle with the virus.

NHS

“Any financial sacrifice that we are making is nothing compared with what the NHS staff are doing at this very minute.

“Our players are heroes to supporters, but the real heroes are the NHS workers who are keeping the country going.

“We are sitting watching this from the comfort and safety of our own homes.

“We thank every single one of them.”

“We thank every single one of them.”