Managers across the Football League are being warned that their playing budgets for next season will be heavily slashed as clubs count the cost of the coronavirus crisis.

Some clubs in League One and League Two have already informed their managers to be prepared for the prospect of minimum 50 per cent cuts to present budgets unless urgent solutions are found to the financial chaos.

Clubs agreed last week to give Rick Parry, the EFL chairman, more time to strike a deal with the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) over player wage cuts.

It is thought that around half of the clubs in tiers three and four have calculated they will struggle to pay their players’ wages for April unless an agreement is reached with the PFA.

Parry and his team were given until the middle of this week to try to strike a breakthrough although some clubs hold out little hope of a uniform agreement being struck.

They are increasingly eager to get on with trying to strike bargains with their individual playing squads given the seriousness of their financial positions.

It is understood that a small number of clubs have even been talking privately about imposing mandatory 50 per cent pay cuts for players and risking the potential legal fall-out if no compromise is reached between the EFL and PFA.

But given the watertight nature of players’ contracts, such a move would leave clubs wide open to a raft of expensive legal challenges that they would have little hope of winning.

At the very least, though, those conversations are said to reflect the frustration being felt by clubs at the time it is taking to reach an accord over wage cuts.

Clubs have been busy exploring where they can make major savings at the same time as protecting revenue streams and many accept that playing and commercial budgets for next season will have to be drastically reduced.

But there is near total agreement that, for clubs to survive this crisis, substantial salary reductions must be introduced.

Telegraph Sport reported last week that League One clubs, for example, will still be facing a £40 million shortfall collectively by September even if players accepted a 30 per cent salary cut.