The pressure on Premier League players and management to agree to take pay cuts grew on Tuesday evening after Tottenham Hotspur became the second top-flight club to announce wage reductions for non-playing staff.

The Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy called on "players and coaches [to do] their bit for the football ecosystem" after causing surprise among 550 staff by telling them they will face 20 per cent salary reductions or being furloughed under the government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

The club published accounts on the same day that showed Levy, who will take a 20 per cent cut, had been paid £7 million in salary and bonus last year despite the opening of the new stadium being delivered six months behind schedule. They also revealed that Spurs' operating profit for the financial year ending June 2019 was a record £172.7million, up more than £10million from the previous year. Overall, total revenue for a season in which the club reached the Champions League final and finished fourth in the Premier League was £460.7million, up from £380.7 million.

However, the club now carry a total net debt of £534.3million, up from £360 million the previous year. Servicing this cost seems to have prompted Levy's drastic action.

Premier League clubs are seeking agreement on a universal wage deferral model that will see clauses written into players’ contracts for a range of outcomes, including whether games are played again this season in full stadiums. They will meet the Professional Footballers’ Association tomorrow/today (Wednesday) for talks, along with Football League clubs.

In an open letter to supporters, Levy expressed dismay at stories trailing potential summer transfer targets that he said showed “people need to wake up to the enormity of what has happened”.

He called on the PFA and the League Managers’ Association not to resist cuts to the salaries of their members. Levy said: “I hope the current discussions between the Premier League, PFA and LMA will result in players and coaches doing their bit for the football eco system.” With Spurs joining Newcastle in subjecting staff to cuts or furloughing there remains no similar measures for their players yet - with all clubs having agreed for now that the league should act as one entity. They are expected to come up with uniform proposals to players on what may begin as wage deferrals but end up as cuts.

While there seems to be a mood among Premier League players that salary cuts will be inevitable, the clubs recognise that they will have to act as a collective to ensure the most effective outcome. As his staff were forced to accept salary cuts, Levy painted a stark picture of what awaits football.