New board press conference thread

[dalumpimunki]

It would be naive in the extreme to think PdC's departure would be cost free.

Yeah because people that walk out on their contracts of employment normally get some sort of pay off don't they.......

[Bob's Orange]

Totally agree Reg and that would be the best outcome.I get the impression getting pdc around a table is probably very difficult though

They should have sent out 'fake' invites for an 'audience with Paolo' evening to lure him to the CG.

I'm sure he would have jumped at the chance of making an appearance.

[Reg Smeeton]

Yeah because people that walk out on their contracts of employment normally get some sort of pay off don't they.......

If they can prove constructive dismissal..

[Paolo69]

If they can prove constructive dismissal..

Yeah but until they do surely the new board don't have to pay a penny (and quite rightly so).

[Flashheart]

Does anybody here know about contract law?

[kerry red]

Would you pay DiCanio and his staff including Spencer febuarys wages if they walked out like they did?

I can see PdC may have a case, but his staff would certainly just have a contract without any reference to transfer policy.

They walked because Paolo did

[Honkytonk]

Dear god, I go away for a weekend and this is what I come back to?

[LucienSanchez]

I assume Spencer wasn't actually an employee of the club? Why would he owe him any money in that scenario?

[DRS]

I assume Spencer wasn't actually an employee of the club? Why would he owe him any money in that scenario?

I believe he was 

[Batch]

They walked because Paolo did

They resigned, not sure if club accepted, presumably so. Which means we owe them up to the day of resignation - so yeah, not significant surely!

[LucienSanchez]

I believe he was 

Ah. That could be bad then... (I never trusted the prick)

[sonicyouth]

Did Spencer handle all our transfers?  If so we paid £1.2m to him in fees and gave him a salary?

[RobertT]

They were offered Comprimise Agreements, so once both parties signed it then we'd have accepted the resignation and the other party will have waived their right to later make any claim against the company for breach of contracts, constructive dismissal etc.

The last we heard publicly was that at least one of them had not returned the agreement.

Not sure on PDC, would imagine given the palava now unfolding, he most certainly didn't bother signing one!  Given his advisors have suggested a legal claim is possible, if he sought to do that via the Courts and not in a tribunal, breach of contract in employment has an uncapped claim limit (cases via tribunals are capped, as is Unfair dismissal).  Oddly, even if the dismissal could be seen as fair, you can still lose a constructive dismissal case as an employer.  So even if we argue we were buggered without selling the player, the court can still find in PDC's favour if they agree it was a material breach.

You'd imagine the court would look at the claim and suggest he needs to have minimised the loss to himself, so trying to find new employment, so he'd struggle to get the full contract paid, but maybe a year would not be unreasonable if they did find his way.

It is highly likely as a business, if you felt this was a serious threat, you'd account for it - which would in turn make it entirely reasonable for the FL to consider it.  This is the bit that's missing though, no real comments about how serious a threat is being made - is it likely or just a consideration.

[dalumpimunki]

Does anybody here know about contract law?

I know enough about employment law to know that to claim constructive dismissal you have to:
- have suffered a clear and fundamental breach of contract
- have raised a grievance or resigned FOR THAT REASON and not for any other reason

Ritchie was sold on the 30th January, and Paolo didn't resign until a couple of weeks later, after
- managing the team for another 3 games
- negotiating a new contract with the new board
- lining up a bunch of new load signings

Then he only finally quits when the take-over fails to happen to his deadline, meaning no new contract and no loan signings. This would seem to have been the final straw which forced him to quit, (and there are plenty of media interviews in which he makes that clear) rather than the Ritchie sale.

That significantly undermines any argument that the Ritchie sale was a breach of contract which constituted  constructive dismissal.

That's accepting PDC's word that a clause about players sales is even in his contract, and assuming that an industrial tribunal would consider such a clause to be fundamental enough to be the subject of a CD case, which isn't that certain in my mind.

[Ticker45]

Every time I read through this thread I get so bloody despondent as all the indications are that we are in a pretty shambolic state behind the scenes at the top.

Yes, two and two are making five and even more at times, but adding together all the little bits of information gleaned from all the sources over the last few weeks be they tweets/e-mails/reports/"people in the know", and trying to sort out the truth from fiction still leaves me wondering where the hell it is all going to end.

My only hope that whatever the current money and off-field problems are that they do not affect the players, as that would really p**s on the chips!