Be Excellent To Each Other

I think UK law would allow them to put him on "gardening leave" for 6 months minimum, depending on circumstances. That's certainly been the case when people have wanted to leave UK based F1 teams.

That's only because the employee has accepted it, you could almost certainly sue for restraint of trade. You'd cause bad feeling in the industry of course, which is why an F1 tech director carrying team secrets won't do it. A footballer doesn't carry trade secrets, it wouldn't restrict him too badly, if at all.

Simply put, no-one will refuse to hire Ronaldo because he wanted to play instead of sit on his arse for 6 months.

People will CERTAINLY refuse to hire..ooh... let's say Frank Dernie if he walked out of Williams on Friday with all their up to dat dev knowledge and was at Red Bull on Monday, because he'd do it again.

The reason in F1 is to prevent someone taking any data with them, the assumption being that after a certain time the data is out of date. "Gardening leave" appears to be a legal compromise between protecting the rights of the individual and the organisation.

It could be argued that Ronaldo leaving Utd to play for a team that competes against them, as Madrid definitely would in the Champions League, is harmful to Utd, and as such they are entitled to protect themselves.

Most contracts specify notice and severance procedures, which are usually enforcable, and should be honoured by both parties. Gardening leave takes place during the contract, technically, not afterwards. An attempt to say where someone can work after the contract is restraint of trade.

There's probably a lot of subtleties I'm missing, as I'm not a lawyer or anything. There's probably a couple of people on this board who would know, though.

Oh you could certainly argue both ways, especially at £2000 an hour...

There is one other crucial difference here though. An F1 tech guy can start at 21. He can still be working at 75. You're blocking maybe 1% of his working life.

A footballer of Ronaldo's type has maybe what... a decade at the very top. Ronaldo has a full 4 years on his contract, even if you only allow 6 months it's quite a chunk of his "working life" and I'm sure a court would take that into account. Plus it would really affect his chance to represent his country, something an F1 tech guy never has. And again, I'd expect that to be taken into account.

The result would probably be like English football's old arbitration system really and he'd leave for Madrid at a panel decided fee considerably lower than his market value.

What Ronaldo would probably need to establish, is that he was intentionally being excluded from first team football.

Given that his manager has been quoted in the national press saying that the club would consider this course of action if he attempts to broker a move to another club, I can't image it would be too difficult.

The ego has landed!

Not sure if this deserves a thread of its own, but Villa have announced that rather than having a commercial sponsor next season, they're going to have the name of a local charity on their shirts.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/a/aston_villa/7433169.stm

It's a bit buried now, because understandably a story about someone not going to manage Chelsea is pretty important.

Or to put it another way "Villa can't find a shirt sponsor"

A possibility I suppose, but it seems unlikely?

Why does this subforum even exist?

Because people like subfora, apparently we must have structure.

I respectfully disagree

I think they're probably a good idea, if they're done properly.
They should probably be based on popularity, rather than "nobody else wants to see this shit." There's plenty of threads in the main forum with more posts than this entire subforum, so we've done something very wrong.

I'm with you on the structure thing though, there's been far too many posts recently moaning about how this place needs to outline its aims, so everyone can decide if they want to be here and we can attract new members, but really I think they just need to enjoy it for what it is or go somewhere else.

I'm free to say that in here, because nobody else will read it

Barcelona have UNICEF as their shirt sponsor, although that was in contrast to previously having never sold the rights to their shirts.

Certainly an admirable move on Aston Villa's part, doubt many will follow though.

Villa had the option of several very lucrative shirt sponsors.

It's just a caring, loving club.

VIlla >>> other clubs.

No he doesn't.

He has signed a contract to be employed by MU PLC. If he plays for the reserves then MU are fulfilling their side of the contract. It is extremely unlikely that he has a Klinsmann-esque "if I'm fit, I play in the first team" type clause.

What Ronaldo may be able to do is buy out his own contract, which I think is done by paying United 2/3rds of what they owe him as salary on the remainder of the contract.

MU certainly have a case, in law, of tampering and inducement. Given that football transfer by and large work as a result of tampering and inducement, it would be interesting to see whether they would push for a court case that they would easily win.

Burnley FC once turned down Time as a sponsor as they didn't like the logo being on their shirts. The fact that Time wanted to also sponsor Blackburn had nothing to do with it. At all. No.

He would still have a good case under restraint of trade.

No he wouldn't. Trust me.

You'll be telling me a Arsenal season ticket entitles you entry to football matches played at the Emirates Stadium next.

You can't sue for being dropped. They could easily cite that he's been a disruptive influence and bench him.

They wouldn't do that though.

You can sue for not being allowed to do your job (restraint of trade like I say), it might hinge on proving whether he's good enough to make the first team. Calling 19 other premiership managers would solve that.

In reality of course it would never get to that stage.

He is too valuable an asset, it would disrupt the team to an unacceptable degree, the fans would have a fit (especially if they had a bad run of form), it would put off other top players going to Man Utd and I imagine it would set a dangerous legal president if he did mange to win in court.

And the players association would have a fit if he lost.

It is hugely beneficial to both sides that players contracts are not tested in a court of European law. For a start, a multi-year contract would not be worth the paper it was written on because one side could exercise a reasonable notice period (call it 3 months) and be off. The idea of a transfer market would collapse overnight.

This is why US sports won't expand into Europe. The draft/trading/free agent system would collapse in a heartbeat when it hits the reality of employment law.

Indeed.

Nah, if American sports really, really wanted to expand into Europe, they'd get an exception, by throwing cash at it. Just like they did in America.

No they wouldn't. Let's put it this way, if the EU tells FIFA and UEFA to jump, they will jump. See Bosman. Same with F1 and a whole host of other sports. The NBA in Europe? No chance, because if EU law applies to an NBA Europe franchise, you can be damned sure that it will have to apply to the LA Lakers as well.

(Must confess, the reason I know so much about professional sports contracts is my dealing with the hockey club, and the hiring and firing of imported players. Whoo, you should see the minefields you have to worry about!)

Where's the restraint? They're still paying him, and he still plays for the football team. They could just start him in a match, and if he is awful you have a justified reason for benching him. If not, then you've still got your player. Peter Crouch at Liverpool has a far better goal scoring record than Kuyt, and yet Kuyt gets picked ahead of him. I don't believe that just because he's sat on the bench, Crouch could get the EU to declare his contract null and void on restraint of trade. There are plenty of managers, players and pundits who'd say he's better than Kuyt.

He possibly could. He wouldn't be dumb enough to because he's not good enough for people to risk hiring after he does that.

Plus HE doesn't have a statement from his manager saying that he'll be benched out of spite.

Ferguson does have a statement from Ronaldo* saying he would like to work for a competitor. In fact it is his "dream" to work for a competitor. Fergie could very easily pull of AS and Marca as evidence of deliberate unsettling of his employee and salary negotiation.


*In the same way that Ronaldo has the benching statement from Fergie. i.e paper talk.

True, though I doubt they'd bench him anyway. If they refuse to sell him to Madrid, Ronaldo is contractually obliged to play for ManYoo. If he plays to his usual dizzying heights, all is well for them. If he doesn't, or refuses to train or gives a big girly strop and storms around and throws toys out of his pram, Fergie could legitimately bench him or throw him in the reserves as being a disruptive influence. That's certainly not against his contract, unless he has a 'must play all games when fit' clause, which he doesn't.

We signed Andy Cole lol

Kind of hard to find the right thread to resurrect but I guess with England making it to a final, it's worth doing maybe?

Anyway, I've sort of enjoyed how arduous the whole thing has been. Late goals, terrible second halves, the inexplicable selection of Kane match after match. It all feels so difficult but it makes each victory so unlikely. As a supporter of QPR, football has always been a negative in my life so I don't really enjoy or understand football that is easy and can only really accept it when it's like this.

#BELIEVE

We'd been to the cinema yesterday, and watched some of the first half while we were eating. I skipped most of the second half to watch some Star Trek then turned on again to see the last few minutes.
It'll be a nice surprise if they do win on Sunday but I don't really care all that much and it won't change much either way.

I've been bizarrely interested in this tournament, considering that I don't really do football. I've even made plans to have friends around on Final Day -- and that was before we made it!

The fuck is going on!?

That's how it gets you Gaz.

Ever since the days of Terry and Lampard, I've found it hard to care about the national team. I can't remember the last time I watched a friendly or even a qualifier.

And the when the tournament starts I will watch England but not particularly care until we score and then that it's it, I realise that I am rooting for them and then I care. It's weird.

Not interested in club football but I do watch the England games. Can’t quite believe how they’ve scrapped through! The way they played last night has given a glimmer of hope for Sunday.

I was really hoping they didn't sneak through, as it'll surely cancel the Sunday quiz night at the pub. But I can either watch the football there anyway, or maybe the same group'll meet for a drink without a quiz. But I had to live vicariously through my brother's celebration when the goal went in.

My local park has a carnival with street food and outdoor cinema, so they've hastily added an extra evening to show the football on Sunday.

I can't imagine you going mental for an England goal, if I'm honest

Nooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Is this a regular thing? If so, and you fancy an extra brain at some point, hit me up! Love a good quiz.

I'm working filming a local music festival on Sunday night. They were already concerned about ticket sales well ahead of last night's result.

I've been getting up with the boys to watch the Ingurlund games, which means either a 2am or a 5am start.

They're getting into football, and play at the weekends.

I do enjoy tournaments, world cup in particular.

For me, watching the England team feels a bit like rekindling a bond with the place i still consider home, and being part of some kind of collective, something bigger - which in a way I think I'm missing in life at the moment, not really being part of any teams, groups, societies etc (other than my workplace).

I do feel like Southgate hasn't exactly got the team playing to the best of their potential, at the same time all those mugs calling for him to be kicked out seem to forget that previous eras have seen a more talented bunch with a more heralded manager do significantly less well. Overall I like Southgate and the players do seem like they genuinely support each other and aren't just paying lip service by saying 'yeah the boys done good'.

The bigger surprise is that you have friends!

Can you not see if there's an ex-pat England club close by that might scratch that pommie itch?

edit: That was at Taxo

Very regular, but in Leeds, so it was my summer haunt last year, now just occasional.

I used to! It does feel like a younger, drunker version now. But complicated by me fully disengaging post Brexit vote and after lots of travel - for a while I didn't really feel English. At the mo I can't tell if I'll be fussed if an England team does well - sometimes I am, sometimes not. I'll be in more for the olympics.

Ah, fair enough. Well, as I say, if you ever fancy an extra brain, let me know. I've been meaning to hit up the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds for a while now, would be a good excuse to make the trip up!

Topically, the crossbow bit isn't as fun as one might think.

The elephant armour is ace.

MaliA speaks the truth.

He seems reasonably cerebral by football standards and he's made it to two finals and a semi out of four. That's pretty impressive. Tactically he's been weird in this tournament but he's been lucky and I sort of think that's a virtue at this point anyway. I'll be happy for him if we win it.

Tough ask though. Spain must be the favourites. Especially if we insist on starting with Kane.

Anyone else made a poor choice with their beers?