West Ham co-owner David Sullivan will ask all the players and staff to take a voluntary wage cut at the end of the season.
Sullivan also revealed that the Premier League club, who have debts of £110m, will face “Armageddon” if they go down.
The Hammers are in the midst of a relegation battle after taking only six points from their last 10 league games.
“We are going to ask everyone at the club to voluntarily take a wage reduction,” Sullivan told BBC Sport.
Sullivan also confirmed that manager Gianfranco Zola would be among those expected to take a pay cut at the end season.
“Gianfranco is highly paid and I think all managers in the Premier League are overpaid,” said O’Sullivan.
“Everywhere you look there is excess. Everyone is overpaid for the job they do. There are 110 mobile phones being paid for by the club and you have minor people with Blackberry phones and other types.
“Already members of the administrative staff have come to us and said, ‘look we know we are overpaid for the job we do but we are good people and we’d like to stay and we are prepared to take a voluntary wage cut’.”
Sullivan and co-owner David Gold took control of West Ham last month after buying a 50% shareholding.
Sullivan admitted that he fears that they could repeat the demise of Newcastle, who were relegated from the Premier League in 2009.
“I can’t believe the contracts I’ve inherited,” added Sullivan.
“The club is in a mess and we all have to pull together. If we go down, I can’t even consider the situation.
“It’ll be Armageddon if we go down. It’ll be worse than what’s gone on at Newcastle.”
The club have already had to make several people redundant.
“We had a player liaison officer who just drove a few of the players around and he was paid £50,000 a year,” revealed Sullivan.
“We’ve had to make people redundant, we’ll make other people redundant. There are people at the training ground who we don’t even know what they do, there are so many people there. When we spend money we have to make it count.”
