Birmingham skipper Harlee Dean has revealed on talkSPORT why he’s decided to take a pay cut for the remainder of the season amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Blues players who have been earning more than £6,000 per week have been asked to accept a 50 per cent cut for the next four months by the club.

Getty Images 1 Harlee Dean has taken a 50 per cent pay cut for the rest of the season

The Blues are the first club in the Championship to make a request of this type, with the willing participants due to paid back in stages once the league campaign resumes.

And speaking to Natalie Sawyer and Jim White on Wednesday, Dean underlined why he took the stance.

He said: “We have been asked the question – I spoke to the CEO Dong (Xuandong Ren) a couple of times on Tuesday and it’s not a collective decision, it’s an individual one so everybody is different everybody has got their own personal situation.

“Some people can help and some people can’t help, it’s just the nature of the beast.

“Personally for me I am going to help because I can and I feel like we should.

“I am not going to go into the personals about it but it’s something along those lines and it’s just anything we can do to help the club out.

“For me, me not doing it and somebody in the club I know who works in admin or something like that, if they got laid off for the sake of me not doing it that doesn’t really sit well with me.”

He continued: “It will hopefully give the club a bit of stability over the months while we are in these uncertain times with the coronavirus and missing games.

Daniel Stendel explains why he took a pay cut at Hearts

“It’s a bit tough for clubs to carry on considering the payments they have got to make.

“At the same time I am sure the club has got a lot of money but you just don’t know how much cash they have on hand, whether it’s tied up in stocks, everyone has taken a hit financially.”

Dean explained how he passed on the message to the rest of the squad in a Whatsapp group.

He added: “There wasn’t much facts about the conversation, more of a ‘can you help us out?’

“I relayed that to the lads and people had a discussion within the group chat.

“Everyone has got their own decision to make, some people have just bought houses and have got children on the way and it doesn’t suite them at the time and that’s fair enough, there’s no sort of ‘you should do it’ or disappointment if they don’t.

“It’s down to everybody’s individual needs. When you are in group chats it can be difficult, I did put in there if anyone wants to message me privately or anything like that then that’s fine.

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“You get some players that are quite vocal in the chat, some that are not. It’s just the way it is.

“It’s for everyone individually, everyone will make their own decision and hopefully it’s a private decision which nobody has to hear about.”

Hearts skipper Steven Naismith has also agreed to take a 50 per cent during the coronavirus pandemic, while manager Daniel Stendel has waived his wages entirely for the remainder of this season.

This is a difficult time, not only for Hearts but for every football club and for people around the world,” Stendel told talkSPORT on Tuesday.

“The feeling when I spoke to our owner Ann Budge was that the situation was very critical while we cannot play games.

“We need to save money so my first thought was, ‘What can I do’?

“I spoke with my family and in the end we decided we want to help Hearts. I have big trust in Ann that she can keep up the club.”