Arsenal’s senior players have rejected the terms of a 12.5 per cent pay cut over 12 months in response to the coronavirus crisis, despite the club throwing in some fresh incentives on new contracts in a bid to get them to agree.

Under the proposed terms that were put to the vote on Monday afternoon, the club said that any player who was offered and signed a new deal in the future would – as a matter of course – be awarded the deducted balance in addition to his new salary.

There was also another clause that any player subject to the cut and later sold for a fee would also receive all of his deduction back in full. That did not prove enough to convince the squad with the players only too aware that the transfer market is likely to be slow in the extreme this summer, and the value of any future contract in doubt, there were too few takers.

The club needed a majority of around three-quarters of the first-team squad for the proposal to be accepted and did not get close to that number although it was not an outright rejection of the deal with some voting in favour.

It is understood the players had a formal vote around 4.30pm and none among the more senior professionals on the top-earning contracts voted in favour. The Telegraph revealed this weekend that the squad had been asked to take a cut with the club trying to incentivise them by offering for it to be rebated in full if they qualified for the Champions League.

The proposed 12.5 per cent cut would fall to 7.5 per cent if the team qualified only for the Europa League. The club also added the proviso that the cut would be rebated in full if the team were to reach the Champions League next season as well as this current one. The 12.5 per cent cut would have equated to around £25 million, a welcome economy for a club with a £230m annual wage bill. A cost that was famously described by director Josh Kroenke, below, the son of owner Stan, as “a Champions League wage bill on a Europa League budget".