Anyone fancy breaking a leg?

[tans]

http://news.uk.msn.com/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=9186463

Fuck me thats a ludicrous amount of money

[janaage]

It's not really, £4.3m settlement seems reasonable to me.

He was in Utd's youth cup winning team, young lad career ended.

Average length of football career 15 years?  Divide the £4.3m by 15, then by 52 gets you an "average" wage for a footballer (around £5,500) and that's without transfer fees, sponsorship deals etc.

Just sounds a lot up front.

[tans]

Yeah but whos to say the bloke would have been any good if he ever broke into Man Utds first team. He couldve been another Colin Heath!

[janaage]

I don't think it's up to the court to second guess whether he'd be a world beater or not, suppose they have to go with the average.

[Colin Todd]

Fergie has said he was a "hot prospect" at United, so the court would have factored in the high probability that someone with that potential would have a full lentgh career in the top 2 divisions.

Not that I agree with footballers taking each other to court.  I'd really like to see the tackle though, must have been a good un

[Rich Pullen]

He was useless in Championship Manager though - got him once on a free.... regretted it.

Instead of looking for a new career - he no longer needs to work as hard as the rest of us  - Booya.

Cue hundreds of former youth players beginning a comp campaign.

[janaage]

Having thought about it some more, I do hope that he'll get taxed on some of that, but I very much doubt he will.

[Colin Todd]

If its compo for lost earnings then surely he should pay income tax and NI on it?

[janaage]

Depends how it's awarded, is it not a personal injury pay out?  In which case the proceeds may be paid straight into trust and managed accordingly.   A decent accountant could probo save him thousands.

I suppose the revenue will assume they'll get their money on the back of taxing his investments.

[Simon Pieman]

They reckoned he'd be on a £13k a week, 3 year contract in the paper. Surely not.

[Rich Pullen]

They reckoned he'd be on a £13k a week, 3 year contract in the paper. Surely not.

On the basis of potential that was agreed by Ferguson among others - Don't get me wrong Ferguson, is on of the greatest managers of our generation - but since the mid-90's Manchester United haven't really produced a genuinely world class footballer - certainly not as many as the should... and how many times have we been told of the "next" big thing - only to end up joining a Championship team or lower.

I hope Collett thanks Ferguson

[THE FLASH]

Red faced sweaty is hardly going to say he was good but never going to make it!!!

[janaage]

I'm sure most managers no matter what the profession would like to see the best for a young lad who's just had his dreams shattered through no fault of his own.  For example if a young bricky got injured sub-contractor on some 3rd party building site through the owners negligence, which meant the lad could never work again I'm sure his boss would like to see the building site owner sued and the young lad financially looked after.  Fair play to Fergie.

[walrus]

4.3million is after tax - the actual amount was nearer 5m.  Not knowing how good he was makes it hard to judge, but if he really was on the verge of the breaking into the Man U first team then I suppose in comparison to what he might have earned it's not a lot. However, he's still laughing, and he's still got earning potential, just in a different career.

[THE FLASH]

fair dos jan..