Magpies: Contracts need to change - Kemp

Kemp, pictured, believes there should be certain stipulations for players who are injured or unavailable for matches due to commitments outside of football.

Kemp said that anyone missing games should receive half their weekly wage.

He also added that current contracts are weighted “100 per cent” in the players’ favour, something the Dorchester chief feels has to change.

“When you’ve got players who are injured for a month, three weeks or two weeks, you’ve still got to pay them,” he said.

“Contracts should be that if you are injured you get half your money.

“There have to be stipulations in the contracts where players don’t get paid full money if they are injured.

“At the moment, the contracts are 100 per cent in the players’ favour.”

He added: “Unlike other clubs, it wasn’t put into their contracts that they got half their money if they were injured or didn’t play.

“The club is still legally bound to pay them full money, so when you have the likes of Jake Smeeton, Ben Joyce and Jamie Gleeson injured for a month you have to find three other players.

“People have questioned some of the signings I’ve made, and they are quite entitled to do that, but I’ve had to sign people for nothing or next to nothing.

“To sign those people you have to gamble, they are not the finished article, that’s just the way of the world.”

Kemp praised the likes of Chris Dillon and Matt Oldring for their efforts since coming to the club, but he admitted that the signing of Micky Hubbard, who has left the Magpies, “didn’t work out”.

As for the aim for the rest of the season in the Evo-Stik Premier Division, Kemp continued: “The best we can hope for next year is to be in this league.

“Staying in the league is the priority but I want us to finish in the top half of the table.

“My initial target was the play-offs rather than where we are now and I admit things haven’t gone as we would have liked.”