All together now: "What's that coming over the hill? It's Jagielka. He's with his lawyer."
Thursday, 19 March 09, 07:41 AM · Comments(4)
What a great week it’s been in the crazy world of football. We’ve had an almighty ruckus at the Emirates, we’ve heard Rory Delap claim that he can play on into his 40s and had everyone from Neil Warnock to Ken Bates wonder how they can get West Ham to pay for their summer holiday. (Yes, I’ll admit maybe scraping the barrel with the Delap story.)
After the out of court settlement reached by West Ham and Sheffield United for a reported £15 million, everybody who’s even seen Bramall Lane has contacted a lawyer to see how they can be part of football’s new, recession-proof gravy train.
Neil Warnock, commonly known as Colin (it’s an anagram, think about it), has claimed that he would still be a Premier League manager if it wasn’t for that nasty Mr. Tevez doing his job, and as such he is thinking of making a claim for loss of earnings. There are two things here, firstly, how somebody who is struggling to manage a Crystal Palace team who are so woefully inconsistent can be so deluded to think he belongs in the Premier League is beyond me, and secondly, my understanding on employment law is that an employee can only sue his former employer for loss of earnings.
There is also a group of around 20 former Sheffield United players who are thinking of suing on similar grounds. This list includes England’s Phil Jagielka. This is the same player who moved to Everton after Utd were relegated, doubling his wages in the process. Michael Tonge is in a similar position, earning Premier League wages with Stoke. I’m also looking forward to Paul Ifil and Claude Davis’ attempts to prove that they are still Premier League quality. Lest we forget poor Chris Morgan, who nearly killed Barnsley’s Iain Hume.
Ken Bates is another one. He believes that his Leeds side would have received add-ons from Sheffield United if Matthew Killgallon, Rob Hulse and Ian Bennet had kept them in the Premier League.
It is hard to feel any sympathy for anybody in this sorry mess. People trying to make a quick buck seem opportunist, and West Ham get no sympathy because they broke the rules in the first place, even though Hammers fans get to watch Davide Di Michelle and Freddie Sears instead of Tevez.
This is set to rumble on and on, as everybody connected with Sheffield United believe they can make money off a decision which claimed that one player, a player who scored 7 goals all season, none of which came against Sheffield United, single-handedly sent the Yorkshire outfit down.
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4 Comments · Add yours
Martin Samuel said it best: “Yes, it was Carlos Tevez, then a West Ham striker, who caused Warnock’s team to lose to Tottenham Hotspur and Fulham before he had even joined West Ham, plus Reading (twice), Everton, Birmingham (in the Carling Cup), Chelsea (twice), Manchester United (twice), West Ham (Tevez did not score and stormed away from Upton Park after being substituted on 66 minutes), Portsmouth, Manchester City, Middlesbrough, Swansea (in the FA Cup), Blackburn, Liverpool, Bolton, Newcastle, Aston Villa and Wigan that season.”
If I were a Sheffield United fan what I'd be bitter about is that West Ham weren't given a points deduction when they were originally found to have broken the third party ownership rules. I think a points deduction is right for the offence, regardless of whether the player in question scored 20 goals or never got on the pitch.
There should be set penalties for things like this, not arbitration panels plucking figures out of the air. That's what caused this mess, not anything that happened on the pitch.
I'm thinking of suing Danny Webber. His miss against Wigan, when clear through, not only contributed to Sheffield United's relegation but also lost me £1 on an accumulator bet I had. My lawyer says I have a good case as any upstanding arbitration panel would agree that a player of his quality should always score in that situation. Regardless of the uncertainty and impossibility to predict anything in football 100% accurately 100% of the time and the fact that in his contract it nowhere states that Danny Webber has to score every opportunity he gets. Thankfully in the hierachy of life, arbitration panels rule mighty over common sense. I think with current inflation rates and my emotional damages suffered after seeing him miss, Danny owes me somewhere in the region of £1,000,000. Hoorah!
great blog :)