EMI have hit back at Robbie Williams following reports the singer is going on 'strike' from his £80 million contract over job cuts at the ailing record label.

Williams is protesting over plans to cut thousands of jobs following private equity firm Terra Firma's take-over of the label, which has also alienated several of their key artists.

However, EMI have hit back at Robbie's manager Tim Clark dubbing Terra Firma's Guy Hands a "plantation owner" who made a "vanity purchase" - claiming he previously held the label to ransom over Robbie's 2002 mega-deal, which has produced scant results so far.

A source at the label tells The Mirror, "Tim Clark always uses the media to negotiate. He put a gun to EMI's head with that £80million deal in 2002. He announced it before the deal had been formally done.

"EMI were put in an impossible position. It was either that - or lose a high-profile British artist. So they had to pay what everyone knew was a ridiculous amount.

"Robbie then fell out with his song-writing partner Guy Chambers and never did his big tour of the US. And he has only delivered two studio albums since, which is a pretty poor work rate. It's rich of Tim Clark to use a phrase like plantation owner to describe Mr Hands as he's a multi-millionaire Kenyan expat himself."

"There's plenty of EMI acts who are still very jealous and unhappy about Robbie getting that deal because it meant less for them. Stratospheric amounts have been paid to managers and lawyers too. It's time for a change."