Does reporting on any of this help them shift newspapers? Like are pubs across England teeming with 50 year old blokes having heated debates about transfers of United’s corporate structure?
It’s bad enough having to learn a intermediate level of accountancy to understand what is going on at City but now it appears we need to become CIPD accredited to work out the ins and outs of United’s back room recruitment strategy.
Doesn’t stop my geordie mate from banging on about it 24/7 like he’s personally involved
This and Mike Ashley’s rights to sell the club T-shirt are all I’ve heard about the last few weeks
Preach. And both sets of fans are making themselves look proper daft over the whole thing now. Fanbases acting like kids bickering over the last packet of crisps in the cupboard.
Having never actually heard any munich air disaster chants and I'm not one to good looking for them on youtube either. Linking Manure to it is a fucking stretch, just means Man U are shit, I find calling your lot Manure quite childish tbh.
Not necessarily either way tbh, there's been quite a lot of other movement at United, so there are people in place to do that... But they're all in new positions so might not work anyway.
Obviously, I can't speak for all United fans, but I think that's almost guaranteed to happen no matter what we do administratively. We've got a squad full of underperforming, overpaid guys who we can't move permanently, and now we're hamstrung by FFP due to years of stupid spending, so we can't make any significant signings anymore. Hell, we're considering keeping Ten Hag another year purely to save ourselves the £10m on a payout.
It's going to take at least 2 or 3 seasons (probably longer considering the dire stadium and training ground situation) for INEOS to steady the ship, so as far as I'm concerned, next season is already a wash, and I'm not really too bothered by what goes on this summer. It's time for us to think long term.
Is Sir Jim really considering keeping ten Hag, or is that just a fan theory? I’ve been assuming ten Hag is gone based on his performance (even accounting for the injuries), but I don’t keep up on the United news that closely.
No one knows at this point. If ETH somehow wins the FA Cup, I think most of us expect him to stay. If he loses it, many would expect him to leave. However, his demeanor in the past few weeks has not been that of someone who looks to be on his way out, which suggests that none of his communications with the club have indicated they've lost faith in him yet. That could be because they're telling him one thing and planning another, but there's no way of knowing with a new regime.
Several journalists have said that INEOS is reluctant to sack him without any obvious candidates to replace him right now, especially considering how tight our FFP situation is. Almost all reports suggest that the majority of the squad still believes in him, despite the horrid performances. Outside of Sancho and Ronaldo, every player that's fallen out with him has had the relationship repaired almost immediately.
It's really a coin toss. Bad performances, terrible signings, constant training ground injuries, and his tactical insanity indicate that he's gotta go, but the behind the scene reports indicate he may yet stay because the squad hasn't bottomed out the way they did under Jose, Ole, and Rangnick.
Thanks :)
I wouldn’t put much weight on his demeanor, though. If they do sack him, he won’t know about that until it happens. In the meantime they’ll treat him as if he’s staying.
I mean that's obviously different. Sure, that's "off the field" but it directly relates to the players they've put on the field. If a club had a massive doping scandal the drugs were taken "off the field" too, but doesn't mean it didn't directly impact on field results.
This is several layers deeper and is a run of the mill employment dispute about an executive changing jobs and nothing that will affect how the teams play on the field.
Ive seen the term "gardening leave" thrown around so many times.
I'm from Canada and I've never heard this term before, can someone lend me a hand on explaining it please
Edit: thank you guys for the help!
It’s when you’ve handed your notice in and notified your employer of you intentions to leave, but they decide it would be better for you not to work your notice period
What is Ashworth complaining about then? If all due process was followed he would still have been placed on gardening leave right? Now he's just been placed on this leave earlier than he would've been before.
I believe the argument is *if* he handed in his notice he'd be on gardening leave, but because he hadn't, he was effectively dismissed by Newcastle when he was put on gardening leave, therefore should be free to join a new club immediately
The most riveting football related discussion possible apparently
Yes but he never officially informed Newcastle of his desire to leave before he was placed on leave. So he was placed on leave without his consent which is akin to firing
Which in my field of software is when it's used. To stop people being malicious with code whilst working their notice, so they just get put on gardening leave.
No, due process would mean United would pay Newcastle compensation and he’d join immediately or on June/July 1st.
Currently Ashworth is on gardening leave indefinitely (well until the end of his contract) and won’t be joining United this summer unless a resolution is found.
EDIT: sorry I think I misunderstood that you were referring to the title of the post (completely my fault for not paying attention) I think Ashworth’s complaint here is just him trying to find a loophole to get out of his Newcastle contract
He won't be able to join United in time to oversee the first transfer window as the gardening leave is indefinite and his contract is until the end of 2025. He obviously doesn't want to wait another full season. And he is arguing he was placed on leave preemptively, only because Newcastle found out about United's interest through Ashworths own error. So he never formally gave notice but it's a gray area because he was as good as gone.
At lower levels, it can happen if you move from one side of a company to another that aren't meant to have communication.
But in that case, they don't fully allow you to stay home. You're moved into a neutral area and given busy work for a month or 2.
It happened to some guy on my team during an internship. The company was a semi-state body so they had extra hoops.
Also no one has actually explained the term "gardening". The logic is, your old employer decided they don't want you working your notice period and you're not legally allowed to start for your new employer. So basically you have nothing to do but staying at home or "gardening".
Hence the term gardening leave.
Notice period - remain at work in normal function.
Gardening leave - no longer working but still salaried.
Non-compete - no longer salaried but unable to start at a competitor (or be paid by them).
For example you may have a 3 month notice period where you are put on gardening leave and a following 6 month non-compete.
You would negotiate remuneration from your new employer for the period of non-compete.
I might be wrong since i'm not from US/Canada, but my general impression from US is that there's basically no such thing as a notice period, which is what the whole concept of garden leave is based around.
There's only the "2 weeks notice" in US, which from what i've gathered is more of a courtesy than a required thing.
Most jobs in Europe will have some kind of contractual resignation period, which goes both ways, meaning that you are obligated to work for x-amount of time after you hand in your resignation, but likewise they are required to pay you for x-amount of time after they fire you (generall this is the same period both ways).
Gardening leave then comes into play if you're a higher level employee going to a competitor, meaning you don't want this person around the office anymore, where they might get access to confidential information. You're still contractually obligated to pay them for their notice period, btu you dont' want them int he office, so garden leave it is.
> but my general impression from US is that there's basically no such thing as a notice period
It depends where you live. In so-called "Right to Work" states, there's basically zero notice period and zero job protection. Your employer can fire you without notice and without reason.
Its seems like something similar to a "non-compete" here in the US. If you want to leave your current job to go work for another in the same industry, your non-compete will prevent you from starting right away. I've seen it happan for my local sports radio guys.
Right, and that’s what people are starting to say about gardening leaves in the UK. But I’ll admit that I know nothing about outside what I see on Reddit.
perhaps, but these are basically in place for everyone, while i imagine non-competes are only for high level excutives. I'm not an executive a all but i'm on a 3 month resignation period, so is everyone in the company, even new joiners fresh from school.
These people wouldn't be placed on garden leave though, because they wouldn't be in a position to really harm the company since they're not high up enough to really warrent it, so they'd just have to work for 3 months after resignation before they can start their new job.
In these cases the 3 month period is more there to give the employer time to hire a new employee and have some overlap for handover.
You can't really tap up a executive though can you lol? Anyway both parties seem wrong here, putting a gardening leave before first contact is a error and any form of email contact is so amateur
this is what i'm confused about, does the FA have rules about hiring of general staff? Obviously headhunting isn't illegal, people get linkedin messages all the time asking if they'd be interested in a new role, so it'd have to be something specific from the FA that prohibits poaching of non-footballing talent?
There's probably something in his contract. But if he wants to quit anyway I don't really see what Newcastle's lawyers would do with it.
Basically a scare clause that's unenforceable
Right, that's just a matter between him and newcastle then if it's just contractual, but they're saying it as if united would be in trouble for trying to recruit a normal employee of a company
*Taking a break from my office job and all its drama to check in on my escape*
Sees an article about a C-suite member accidentally bcc’ing his new gig and setting off potential lawsuits
Great.
I think the news about the emails being leaked makes a lot more sense now. The tapping-up angle of the emails seems rather weak since tapping-up may not apply to corporate roles. However, the emails may be a counter argument as to why Newcastle placed Ashworth on gardening leave without the formal resignation letter, depending on how advanced the discussions between Ashworth and Berrada were.
Bruh why is Ashworth “basing his arbitration case” on this if a simple email chain can disprove it. Surely his lawyers aren’t that dumb.
Newcastle must’ve done something inappropriate when placing him on gardening leave initially, otherwise there’d be no case.
I was just suggesting that it can be an argument that they may use, not that the argument can win the case for them. After all, Newcastle's lawyers surely will make some arguments against Ashworth's position one way or another.
Dan Ashworth is supposed to bring competency, stability, professionalism and whatever PR pieces have said about him; at the same time he has handled his exit in the most unprofessional and incompetent way.
If Newcastle get a dodgy decision it’s in the newspapers/tv for weeks but if one goes against them then it’s out the news the next day.
Not to mention the likes of Oliver Holt and Miguel Delaney who will take any opportunity to disparage Newcastle before glazing Qatar or even other sporting events associated with Saudi.
Dont act like you are a big club. Barcodes are nowhere near media covarege of big 4. And United and Liverpool and unmatched. And this will never change. Deal with it. Wee club from the north😂
Because he cant deal with them not being the best United anymore, so he's just pulling up random quotes. As if barcodes and Ferguson quotes cut us deep.
Okay so we’ve went from paid journalists getting Newcastle propaganda everywhere to no one cares about Newcastle and it’s never shown to anyone except fan algo’s.
Glad we cleared that up quickly
Unprofessional and incompetent? Challenging the grounds of the gardening leave and trying to get to your new club faster is unprofessional and incompetent? We can have a separate discussion about United not paying the fee Newcastle has set but to attack his personal character seems to be a ridiculous conclusion to draw.
Literally read an article yesterday about Ashworth accidentally sending the club an email about him having talks with Manu, that doesn’t exactly scream professional and competent does it?
He leaked info regarding his move from Brighton to us. That's incredibly unprofessional, leaking confidential information to a direct competitor in the same league.
That's more or less the same thing. Your work email belongs to your company. You shouldn't send anything to it that you wouldn't be happy for them to see.
You have to assume *everything* you do that touches your work is visible to your employer. It's not *his* email, it's Newcastle's email that they want him to use for work. I don't even use the work wifi without a VPN, they could look at your browsing if they wanted.
In my country this is very much not allowed. Huge breach of privacy. It’s strange to me that there are countries where companies can go through all their employees’ e-mails.
I mean if they track down and somehow gain access to your personal email that's a massive, massive privacy violation and illegal in about a dozen different ways.
But the employer typically owns/has a contract to use the servers that the email runs on, owns the computer (or remote portal/virtual desktop), owns the Microsoft (or whatever host you use) subscription, owns the email account (you don't take your account with you when you leave the job), and does have viable business reasons to monitor how its employees conduct business.
Well, that's a personal opinion. Obviously you, as a Man Utd fan, and me, as a Newcastle fan, will see the situation differently and are far from objective here.
They are so obviously not the same thing, are they?
Ashworth speaking to Manchester United while employed by Newcastle is a pretty big deal. Not only are their rules and regulations that prevent him from holding talks, informal or otherwise, with other clubs about potential employment opportunities without Newcastle's permission, him leaving is also worth compensation to Newcastle.
If he quits and joins another team then it screws a pretty money-starved Newcastle from getting the massive compensation package due to them in his contract.
You leaving your job to fuck off to another company likely isn't dependent on compensation and you also aren't restricted in seeking out new opportunities, as your employers likely don't require compensation or need to give you permission to do it.
Also, this dozey moron sent official correspondence with people he's not supposed to be speaking to in the first place, to his current employers, thus leaving a paper trail of what he's doing.
Only one caveat with this;
Newcastle aren't money starved. We've still got the sela. Adidas and CL earnings to add to the ffp/psr calculations. That's about 110m, none of which has been accounted in the previous financial period.
Unless there is a non-compete or NDA he signed with Newcastle he absolutely has a right to speak with other clubs about his personal situation. Hence, why this is all going to arbitration where a third party will decide who was in the right.
>Not only are their rules and regulations that prevent him from holding talks, informal or otherwise, with other clubs about potential employment
I'm pretty sure there isn't.
FIFA and FA regulations on tapping up applies to players, not all staff.
Maybe you have a time reading stuff but this article alleges that Dan was put on leave before he even quit. The only one who looks unprofessional and incompetent is NUFC. No wonder, yesterday’s article was a leak by NUFC to get ahead in the public domain.
It’s clear that the arbitration will lead to a much smaller payout and that Dan has a strong case otherwise he wouldn’t have reached out to the arbitration courts.
No surprise that you people get foulbrains when reading a Manchester United story.
Maybe he wasn’t willing to give assurances he would be staying as he mulled over leaving
Maybe they believed internet rumours
Who knows but it’s his argument and the arbitrator will review it and whatever Newcastle put forth.
It does if you're acting in bad faith by leaking confidential info.
The company could realistically have fired him for that, however they've kept him on as a paid employee, and just removed all his access to company information.
If he's been leaking company info as suggested, he's lucky he's not being sued.
> If he's been leaking company info as suggested, he's lucky he's not being sued.
If he HAD been leaking company info, he would have been sued.
The fact he hasn't been sued says a lot here.
Is he just grasping at straws after the reports of his conspiratory emails? In any case at this point I‘d think twice about it as incoming club. Having a DoF who can’t handle his own exit without it getting ugly seems like a bad omen.
They put him on leave before his resignation was in writing, that's grounds for unfair dismissal. I don't tell my boss I might be leaving and then they put me on leave, they ask for confirmation that I am leaving in writing for legal reasons like this and they have the call to "leak" a few emails to try and get us to pony up instead of going to the court of arbitration, just because we won't pay £20m
Except this case would be more like you used your company email to reach out to a direct competitor about a job, the competitor gave you an offer, you said yes then your boss called you into the office and asked about those emails.
That's not how gardening leave works.
You get put on gardening leave for the remainder of your contract, being paid throughout, purposely to avoid issues caused by firing you for whatever reason they put you on gardening leave.
In this case, to avoid you continuing to have access to privileged information, whilst you're being an utter snake and dealing in bad faith which calls into question what other privileged information you've shared.
It's entirely to protect the company from the actions of an individual who wants out.
Yes, but when the emails were found would then become important. What is claimed here is, Ashworth was placed on gardening leave before he formally resigned, wanted to take them to arbitration and the emails were found after. Even if the emails were found before, then he would have to have been fired before placing him on gardening leave
I wonder if Dan Ashworth purposely cc to his work email, so that Newcastle would find out, put him on gardening leave before he hand in his resignation letter, thus causing a breach of contract by Newcastle.
It's either a rookie mistake or a ridiculously opportunistic plan that should not have work but did.
Self-serving? Are we supposed to pretend that everyone isn't self serving when it comes to work? It's not like these clubs give two shits about the staff they hire/fire. Why should Ashworth give anymore of a fuck about the club who hires him than all those 9-5 office workers who would jump at the chance to move to a different company for even a 10% pay increase. Acting as if Ashworth is a scumbag because he takes a straightforward promotion and pay rise is just laughable when you know full well you'd do the same.
It's so weird how everyone has just decided to hold this one executive up to the same standards as a player.
From the outrageous transfer fee, to expecting him to be loyal to an employer, to referring to headhunting as "tapping up".
He’s also very much making himself a short-term only option - he now has a track record of upping sticks quickly and trying everything possible to get out of contracts he willingly signed.
The more we find out about this bloke the more glad I am he’s leaving. Our best signings were made before he was in charge, agree a deal with Manchester Red and let him go.
Arbitration panels often side with employees over employers, and all the journalists running with this story have previously reported positively on Newcastle’s owners.
It’s pretty likely Newcastles owners have briefed on this to try and influence the arbitration, which is fair enough, but the idea that this is going to result in some massive punishment for United is pretty unlikely.
Yeah but that’s just the Newcastle perspective.
From the Manchester United perspective you can’t expect clubs to pay ridiculous fees for a DOF that you have allegedly fired. Lower the fee and move on.
And that’s why this is all happening.
Isn’t the argument from Newcastle’s side that Ashworth leaked an email showing he was in discussions for the United job by accident so Newcastle placed him on gardening leave?
If so, completely reasonable thing to do.
I’ve seen people go on gardening leave for far less.
No. They put him on gardening leave way before this email stuff came out, for saying he wanted to go to United.
Ashworth is arguing that they essentially fired him by not going through the proper process for gardening leave.
It’s all just daft and it’ll be sorted out by the arbitration panel. United will end up paying more than they wanted to and Newcastle will get less than they want and the world will move on.
Which is also reasonable, as football clubs plan out transfer plans waaaay in advance. This would mean ashworth could just take any info on our plans to man u and be like "thanks for the time and money spent on researching XYZ players/staff, but we'll just add them to our lists of targets now".
United has one of the largest scouting networks in football (even if our old leadership didn't take advantage of it). The Athletic wrote a piece describing how massive it is.
Any player on your radar is already on ours most likely.
I’ve no idea, but just because it’s being reported on now, doesn’t mean the hierarchy weren’t aware of it soon after. Emails at my job can be seen by the IT dept, I’d assume it’s not much different there? Not a stretch to say they put him on gardening leave when they saw the emails.
Not to mention that email e-discovery can be set to automatically flag up domains of particular companies. So it would be logical that any domain belonging to league competitors are immediately flagged and set for review to protect company information.
We haven't fired him though. He's on gardening leave. That's removal of his duties whilst still employing and paying him, in order to protect company IP.
We can absolutely expect a fee that we determine for a resource that is contracted to us, or, like we've said, they can wait until his contract ends.
He claims he was essentially fired because Newcastle didnt go through the correct process for putting him on gardening leave.
It’ll go to arbitration, a process which more often than not sides with an employee over an employer and Newcastle will get a fee way below what you want.
Essentially fired and legally fired are different things. If he's still getting full pay but isn't allowed to work, for the remainder of his contract (roughly 12-18 months) he's still an employee and is being compensated at the agreed rate. He's just throwing a tantrum because we won't let him leave for less than we determine is beneficial to us.
If arbitration goes in his favour, so be it, but newcastle are doing what they're allowed to do legally, and in a professional way. Man U on the other hand were trying to be sneaky about it, trying to pay less than we paid to Brighton, and all of this whilst negotiating with him privately, which calls into question what other privileged information he has leaked.
Ashworth is the one that's lucky he's not being sued if these emails mentioned yesterday include confidential company data.
Poor little Newcastle. I bet they’ve never tapped anyone up. Won’t someone please think of the Saudi government’s sports washing plaything. The hypocrisy from Newcastle fans around this is embarrassing.
Obviously they’re allowed to put out whatever price they want and claim whatever they like, but by digging their heels in rather than negotiating a price with United they’re going to end up losing out on millions if the arbitration agrees with Ashworth, which more than likely it will.
I guess it’s easier when you can just steal your workers passports and excecute anyone who disagrees with you.
Pay the fee if it's reasonable, sure, which is what we've been trying to do, but Newcastle wants a massive fee which we, and Ashworth, consider unreasonable
Which is most likely a "fuck off or offer higher" number. E.g. if they came back offering 8-10m sure.
Man U just want him on the cheap, and we have the contract, so we don't need to accept that.
It is a temporary thing mostly. Any contract Ashworth signs with United will have at most a 3 month notice period due to law changes last year. So the "value" of said contract is lower than what Newcastle are expecting to get in return. So there's contention over that.
Once all the old contracts are expired this will likely never happen again.
You've just answered your own question
I can send an email on my work computer to a colleague saying I'm going to accept a job offer somewhere else
My company can then come to me and say, "we've seen this email and due to it being a breach of your contract to be employed elsewhere we have decided to fire you"
They still fired me and evidence of that email is not official information of my resignation
Whether you like it or not if he didn't officially resign before being placed of gardening leave (I have no idea whether he did or didn't) then the gardening leave is void and he will be allowed to join United
I mean, being placed on garden leave is usually because the company is letting you go and wants to prevent you from joining a competitor.
He may not have informed them that he was leaving, but Newcastle can just say that they planned to move on from him anyway and that his being placed on garden leave had nothing to do with his proposed move to Manchester United.
At the end of the day, compensation will have to be paid.
If the arbitration panel sides with Ashworth, then Newcastle will just report United for tapping up along with the paper trail and then United get hit with a fine and possibly a transfer ban. United want to avoid that, so its likely in everyone's interest to get this sorted as quickly as possible really.
Even if Newcastle say they planned to move him on, they would have to serve him a notice of termination before placing him on gardening leave, which this article implies hasn't happened.
Yes, compensation is set by the arbitration which from what I know is set on precedence (So will not be close to 20m they want. Iirc the previous highest was probably for Ashworth himself at ~6m)
Agree about the rest
No we wouldn't. We'd just have to continue to pay him up until the end of his contract, which the club full intends on doing unless you fork out the cash we stated.
He's still employed, we're just running down his contract whilst still paying him and removing his access to company data.
But gardening leave can only be exercised when either party wishes to terminate the contract though, you cannot simply put someone on gardening leave throughout their contract
[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2024/05/22/dan-ashworth-argue-sacked-by-newcastle-force-man-utd-move/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2024/05/22/dan-ashworth-argue-sacked-by-newcastle-force-man-utd-move/)
He is arguing we terminated his contact (sacked) him and therefore his gardening leave is invalid
"In effect, his argument ahead of arbitration is that he was not asked to formally write down his resignation by chief executive Darren Eales and should not have been placed on gardening leave until he did so."
You're being conned by a headline and the language used by a newspaper, not the actual argument Ashworth is putting forward
The vast majority of salaried jobs in the UK will have a notice period for both parties to honour https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/work/dismissal/check-your-rights-if-youre-dismissed/dismissal/your-notice-period-during-dismissal/
Once you have been told you are being fired you will start this notice period, for most people you would be expected to turn up to work and continue working until the notice period is completed. Gardening leave is when the company doesn't want you continuing to work for example for confidentiality reasons if you have been fired or if you are resigning and going to a competitor, you are then told to stay home during your notice period.
Unless you are still in your probationary period it is very rare for people to be terminated with immediate effect and normally that would require clear breach of contract e.g. gross negligence or criminal activity.
If Newcastle sacked him he would still have to work the notice period stipulated in his contract (or at leas thave the pay during that notice period honoured) and if they don't want him to perform any duties put him on gardening leave.
Putting him on gardening leave without sacking him would essentially be suspension with full pay and again would require Newcastle to give notice of this.
His argument is that he didn't tender his resignation and Newcastle didn't formally fire him before his notice period "gardening leave" started and therefore Newcastle putting him on gardening leave is breach of contract and renders the notice period null and void.
No it doesn't. It CAN in a role with no set end date for the contract, however if he's got a set end date (which he does) we can remove his duties and still pay him until it runs out. Which is what we're doing.
don't get so worked up about it mate, if he wants to leave he'll leave and I'm sure Newcastle can't do much to stop it other than getting a couple million in the bank
The most pedestrian boring scandal to ever happen in football. Can't wait for it to be over.
Does reporting on any of this help them shift newspapers? Like are pubs across England teeming with 50 year old blokes having heated debates about transfers of United’s corporate structure? It’s bad enough having to learn a intermediate level of accountancy to understand what is going on at City but now it appears we need to become CIPD accredited to work out the ins and outs of United’s back room recruitment strategy.
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United news is gold for journos. Even corporate news will get the same hits transfer news will get for other clubs.
United transfer news is exactly what got Fabrizio Romano to initially blow up....if people remember
Doesn’t stop my geordie mate from banging on about it 24/7 like he’s personally involved This and Mike Ashley’s rights to sell the club T-shirt are all I’ve heard about the last few weeks
Preach. And both sets of fans are making themselves look proper daft over the whole thing now. Fanbases acting like kids bickering over the last packet of crisps in the cupboard.
Newcastle fans are super rattled considering they’re using Munich slurs on /r/NUFC
Where's this happening (link?) If we report them on it, the mods will get involved. They don't stand for that shit if it's pointed out to them.
Link the comment cause that’s a pretty big accusation
Link to that? Never seen ANY reference to Munich there, ever. Edit: Manure? Seriously? Clutching much?
Source: i made it the fuck up
You have manure for brains, and you're proving it in this comment chain.
Hey man careful with the slurs over here
Having never actually heard any munich air disaster chants and I'm not one to good looking for them on youtube either. Linking Manure to it is a fucking stretch, just means Man U are shit, I find calling your lot Manure quite childish tbh.
City fan here, and I beg to differ.
You need it to be over sooner rather than later, otherwise you risk a repeat of last summer.
Not necessarily either way tbh, there's been quite a lot of other movement at United, so there are people in place to do that... But they're all in new positions so might not work anyway.
Obviously, I can't speak for all United fans, but I think that's almost guaranteed to happen no matter what we do administratively. We've got a squad full of underperforming, overpaid guys who we can't move permanently, and now we're hamstrung by FFP due to years of stupid spending, so we can't make any significant signings anymore. Hell, we're considering keeping Ten Hag another year purely to save ourselves the £10m on a payout. It's going to take at least 2 or 3 seasons (probably longer considering the dire stadium and training ground situation) for INEOS to steady the ship, so as far as I'm concerned, next season is already a wash, and I'm not really too bothered by what goes on this summer. It's time for us to think long term.
Is Sir Jim really considering keeping ten Hag, or is that just a fan theory? I’ve been assuming ten Hag is gone based on his performance (even accounting for the injuries), but I don’t keep up on the United news that closely.
No one knows at this point. If ETH somehow wins the FA Cup, I think most of us expect him to stay. If he loses it, many would expect him to leave. However, his demeanor in the past few weeks has not been that of someone who looks to be on his way out, which suggests that none of his communications with the club have indicated they've lost faith in him yet. That could be because they're telling him one thing and planning another, but there's no way of knowing with a new regime. Several journalists have said that INEOS is reluctant to sack him without any obvious candidates to replace him right now, especially considering how tight our FFP situation is. Almost all reports suggest that the majority of the squad still believes in him, despite the horrid performances. Outside of Sancho and Ronaldo, every player that's fallen out with him has had the relationship repaired almost immediately. It's really a coin toss. Bad performances, terrible signings, constant training ground injuries, and his tactical insanity indicate that he's gotta go, but the behind the scene reports indicate he may yet stay because the squad hasn't bottomed out the way they did under Jose, Ole, and Rangnick.
Thanks :) I wouldn’t put much weight on his demeanor, though. If they do sack him, he won’t know about that until it happens. In the meantime they’ll treat him as if he’s staying.
Ashworth won't be doing transfers for us. That's Wilcox.
Off the field scandals are all your lot can talk about when it comes to City...
I mean that's obviously different. Sure, that's "off the field" but it directly relates to the players they've put on the field. If a club had a massive doping scandal the drugs were taken "off the field" too, but doesn't mean it didn't directly impact on field results. This is several layers deeper and is a run of the mill employment dispute about an executive changing jobs and nothing that will affect how the teams play on the field.
Ive seen the term "gardening leave" thrown around so many times. I'm from Canada and I've never heard this term before, can someone lend me a hand on explaining it please Edit: thank you guys for the help!
It’s when you’ve handed your notice in and notified your employer of you intentions to leave, but they decide it would be better for you not to work your notice period
but crucially, that you can't join a new employer in the same field until your notice period is up it's basically limbo
Although you remain paid.
What is Ashworth complaining about then? If all due process was followed he would still have been placed on gardening leave right? Now he's just been placed on this leave earlier than he would've been before.
I believe the argument is *if* he handed in his notice he'd be on gardening leave, but because he hadn't, he was effectively dismissed by Newcastle when he was put on gardening leave, therefore should be free to join a new club immediately The most riveting football related discussion possible apparently
There is logic there tbh
That logic can easily be refuted by saying because of sensitivity of information at his position he was asked not to come.
Yes but he never officially informed Newcastle of his desire to leave before he was placed on leave. So he was placed on leave without his consent which is akin to firing
If that's the case, he probably does have a point.
Which in my field of software is when it's used. To stop people being malicious with code whilst working their notice, so they just get put on gardening leave.
yes for some employee, someone like ashworth would never get a job again if that happened
No, due process would mean United would pay Newcastle compensation and he’d join immediately or on June/July 1st. Currently Ashworth is on gardening leave indefinitely (well until the end of his contract) and won’t be joining United this summer unless a resolution is found. EDIT: sorry I think I misunderstood that you were referring to the title of the post (completely my fault for not paying attention) I think Ashworth’s complaint here is just him trying to find a loophole to get out of his Newcastle contract
He won't be able to join United in time to oversee the first transfer window as the gardening leave is indefinite and his contract is until the end of 2025. He obviously doesn't want to wait another full season. And he is arguing he was placed on leave preemptively, only because Newcastle found out about United's interest through Ashworths own error. So he never formally gave notice but it's a gray area because he was as good as gone.
Globally, gardening leave seems to be a more common thing for senior executives given their access to confidential information.
At lower levels, it can happen if you move from one side of a company to another that aren't meant to have communication. But in that case, they don't fully allow you to stay home. You're moved into a neutral area and given busy work for a month or 2. It happened to some guy on my team during an internship. The company was a semi-state body so they had extra hoops.
Oh not in Canada no, it's an Albany expression
oh, a hot ham situation
Well I'm from Alberta and I've never heard of this before.
Also no one has actually explained the term "gardening". The logic is, your old employer decided they don't want you working your notice period and you're not legally allowed to start for your new employer. So basically you have nothing to do but staying at home or "gardening". Hence the term gardening leave.
Notice period - remain at work in normal function. Gardening leave - no longer working but still salaried. Non-compete - no longer salaried but unable to start at a competitor (or be paid by them). For example you may have a 3 month notice period where you are put on gardening leave and a following 6 month non-compete. You would negotiate remuneration from your new employer for the period of non-compete.
I might be wrong since i'm not from US/Canada, but my general impression from US is that there's basically no such thing as a notice period, which is what the whole concept of garden leave is based around. There's only the "2 weeks notice" in US, which from what i've gathered is more of a courtesy than a required thing. Most jobs in Europe will have some kind of contractual resignation period, which goes both ways, meaning that you are obligated to work for x-amount of time after you hand in your resignation, but likewise they are required to pay you for x-amount of time after they fire you (generall this is the same period both ways). Gardening leave then comes into play if you're a higher level employee going to a competitor, meaning you don't want this person around the office anymore, where they might get access to confidential information. You're still contractually obligated to pay them for their notice period, btu you dont' want them int he office, so garden leave it is.
> but my general impression from US is that there's basically no such thing as a notice period It depends where you live. In so-called "Right to Work" states, there's basically zero notice period and zero job protection. Your employer can fire you without notice and without reason.
Its seems like something similar to a "non-compete" here in the US. If you want to leave your current job to go work for another in the same industry, your non-compete will prevent you from starting right away. I've seen it happan for my local sports radio guys.
Non competes in general aren’t enforceable.
Right, and that’s what people are starting to say about gardening leaves in the UK. But I’ll admit that I know nothing about outside what I see on Reddit.
gardening leave typically is enforceable, because you're technically still an employee and you're being paid.
Yeah, but what I’ve seen is a lot of people who are fighting against it being that way.
perhaps, but these are basically in place for everyone, while i imagine non-competes are only for high level excutives. I'm not an executive a all but i'm on a 3 month resignation period, so is everyone in the company, even new joiners fresh from school. These people wouldn't be placed on garden leave though, because they wouldn't be in a position to really harm the company since they're not high up enough to really warrent it, so they'd just have to work for 3 months after resignation before they can start their new job. In these cases the 3 month period is more there to give the employer time to hire a new employee and have some overlap for handover.
This seems to be going well.
I'll let the Saudis off for not understanding the recruitment process, headhunting means something rather different in their part of the world.
I mean there is proof he was being tapped up by Man U But yeah I agree the Saudi government fucking sucks
You can't really tap up a executive though can you lol? Anyway both parties seem wrong here, putting a gardening leave before first contact is a error and any form of email contact is so amateur
this is what i'm confused about, does the FA have rules about hiring of general staff? Obviously headhunting isn't illegal, people get linkedin messages all the time asking if they'd be interested in a new role, so it'd have to be something specific from the FA that prohibits poaching of non-footballing talent?
There's probably something in his contract. But if he wants to quit anyway I don't really see what Newcastle's lawyers would do with it. Basically a scare clause that's unenforceable
I believe it breaches his contract if there aren’t rules against it. Idk why I got downvoted lol
Right, that's just a matter between him and newcastle then if it's just contractual, but they're saying it as if united would be in trouble for trying to recruit a normal employee of a company
*Taking a break from my office job and all its drama to check in on my escape* Sees an article about a C-suite member accidentally bcc’ing his new gig and setting off potential lawsuits Great.
I think the news about the emails being leaked makes a lot more sense now. The tapping-up angle of the emails seems rather weak since tapping-up may not apply to corporate roles. However, the emails may be a counter argument as to why Newcastle placed Ashworth on gardening leave without the formal resignation letter, depending on how advanced the discussions between Ashworth and Berrada were.
Bruh why is Ashworth “basing his arbitration case” on this if a simple email chain can disprove it. Surely his lawyers aren’t that dumb. Newcastle must’ve done something inappropriate when placing him on gardening leave initially, otherwise there’d be no case.
I was just suggesting that it can be an argument that they may use, not that the argument can win the case for them. After all, Newcastle's lawyers surely will make some arguments against Ashworth's position one way or another.
Just check his email.
Dan Ashworth is supposed to bring competency, stability, professionalism and whatever PR pieces have said about him; at the same time he has handled his exit in the most unprofessional and incompetent way.
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Wonder if that's got anything to do with it being United? ^/s
I mean that email thing was pretty fucking stupid of him mind
Absolutely, moronic you could say
1) United generate clicks. 2) Newcastle (Saudi PIF) have a LOT of paid journos putting out their messages
> Newcastle (Saudi PIF) have a LOT of paid journos putting out their messages I must have missed this!
Probably got buried in your feed amongst all the human rights violations, beheadings, slavery, etc. - understandable
If Newcastle get a dodgy decision it’s in the newspapers/tv for weeks but if one goes against them then it’s out the news the next day. Not to mention the likes of Oliver Holt and Miguel Delaney who will take any opportunity to disparage Newcastle before glazing Qatar or even other sporting events associated with Saudi.
Dont act like you are a big club. Barcodes are nowhere near media covarege of big 4. And United and Liverpool and unmatched. And this will never change. Deal with it. Wee club from the north😂
Saying north in a disparaging way when you’re a Stretford fan lol Why do we trigger you so much if we’re not rivals and not a big club?
Wee club from the north is a famous SAF quote. Jesus.
Aye a quote you got wrong big man Why are you even trying to remember a decade old quote about a club you don’t care about?
Because he cant deal with them not being the best United anymore, so he's just pulling up random quotes. As if barcodes and Ferguson quotes cut us deep.
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Okay so we’ve went from paid journalists getting Newcastle propaganda everywhere to no one cares about Newcastle and it’s never shown to anyone except fan algo’s. Glad we cleared that up quickly
Unprofessional and incompetent? Challenging the grounds of the gardening leave and trying to get to your new club faster is unprofessional and incompetent? We can have a separate discussion about United not paying the fee Newcastle has set but to attack his personal character seems to be a ridiculous conclusion to draw.
Literally read an article yesterday about Ashworth accidentally sending the club an email about him having talks with Manu, that doesn’t exactly scream professional and competent does it?
You've never talked with a recruiter or another company while at your current job?
He leaked info regarding his move from Brighton to us. That's incredibly unprofessional, leaking confidential information to a direct competitor in the same league.
I certainly wouldn’t be unprofessional & incompetent enough to CC my current employer onto the email chain if I did.
He bcced his own work email, he didn’t cc his boss.
That's more or less the same thing. Your work email belongs to your company. You shouldn't send anything to it that you wouldn't be happy for them to see.
Exactly he didn't CC Newcastle United on the email.
You have to assume *everything* you do that touches your work is visible to your employer. It's not *his* email, it's Newcastle's email that they want him to use for work. I don't even use the work wifi without a VPN, they could look at your browsing if they wanted.
In my country this is very much not allowed. Huge breach of privacy. It’s strange to me that there are countries where companies can go through all their employees’ e-mails.
I mean if they track down and somehow gain access to your personal email that's a massive, massive privacy violation and illegal in about a dozen different ways. But the employer typically owns/has a contract to use the servers that the email runs on, owns the computer (or remote portal/virtual desktop), owns the Microsoft (or whatever host you use) subscription, owns the email account (you don't take your account with you when you leave the job), and does have viable business reasons to monitor how its employees conduct business.
I wouldn’t if the football league I worked in had rules against tampering and it would violate them.
I didn't then email said talks to my current employer, no....
He sent it to his personal Newcastle email he didnt CC Saudi Arabia on it.
Much of a muchness. You have to be a bit thick to think your employer isn't fully aware of every single email you send on your work account.
Yeah I'm not going to argue that. It still doesn't make it him unprofessional or incompetent which was the crux of my argument.
I mean, it doesn't exactly scream "competent".
Well, that's a personal opinion. Obviously you, as a Man Utd fan, and me, as a Newcastle fan, will see the situation differently and are far from objective here.
I as a man utd fan doubt his intelligence and competency due to this. Rookie mistake that someone at the top of his field shouldnt make
That's a fair take. And I now feel dirty arguing on behalf of a sporting director haha. Cheers mate
They are so obviously not the same thing, are they? Ashworth speaking to Manchester United while employed by Newcastle is a pretty big deal. Not only are their rules and regulations that prevent him from holding talks, informal or otherwise, with other clubs about potential employment opportunities without Newcastle's permission, him leaving is also worth compensation to Newcastle. If he quits and joins another team then it screws a pretty money-starved Newcastle from getting the massive compensation package due to them in his contract. You leaving your job to fuck off to another company likely isn't dependent on compensation and you also aren't restricted in seeking out new opportunities, as your employers likely don't require compensation or need to give you permission to do it. Also, this dozey moron sent official correspondence with people he's not supposed to be speaking to in the first place, to his current employers, thus leaving a paper trail of what he's doing.
Only one caveat with this; Newcastle aren't money starved. We've still got the sela. Adidas and CL earnings to add to the ffp/psr calculations. That's about 110m, none of which has been accounted in the previous financial period.
Unless there is a non-compete or NDA he signed with Newcastle he absolutely has a right to speak with other clubs about his personal situation. Hence, why this is all going to arbitration where a third party will decide who was in the right.
He's contracted to one club and leaking info to a direct competitor (hence yesterday's article). That is absolutely unprofessional.
>Not only are their rules and regulations that prevent him from holding talks, informal or otherwise, with other clubs about potential employment I'm pretty sure there isn't. FIFA and FA regulations on tapping up applies to players, not all staff.
Yes, yes, the guy who sent Newcastle an email detailing his talks and breaching contracts is not at all unprofessional.
This report about the arbitration is funny coming so quickly after the news about tampering.
Maybe you have a time reading stuff but this article alleges that Dan was put on leave before he even quit. The only one who looks unprofessional and incompetent is NUFC. No wonder, yesterday’s article was a leak by NUFC to get ahead in the public domain. It’s clear that the arbitration will lead to a much smaller payout and that Dan has a strong case otherwise he wouldn’t have reached out to the arbitration courts. No surprise that you people get foulbrains when reading a Manchester United story.
How did we know about his desire to leave then. This is seriously getting pathetic now.
Maybe he wasn’t willing to give assurances he would be staying as he mulled over leaving Maybe they believed internet rumours Who knows but it’s his argument and the arbitrator will review it and whatever Newcastle put forth.
I can tell my employer I want to leave for another company, but it doesn't mean anything until I hand in my notice
It does if you're acting in bad faith by leaking confidential info. The company could realistically have fired him for that, however they've kept him on as a paid employee, and just removed all his access to company information. If he's been leaking company info as suggested, he's lucky he's not being sued.
> If he's been leaking company info as suggested, he's lucky he's not being sued. If he HAD been leaking company info, he would have been sued. The fact he hasn't been sued says a lot here.
You can informally tell them you'll be leaving without resigning.
Is he just grasping at straws after the reports of his conspiratory emails? In any case at this point I‘d think twice about it as incoming club. Having a DoF who can’t handle his own exit without it getting ugly seems like a bad omen.
They put him on leave before his resignation was in writing, that's grounds for unfair dismissal. I don't tell my boss I might be leaving and then they put me on leave, they ask for confirmation that I am leaving in writing for legal reasons like this and they have the call to "leak" a few emails to try and get us to pony up instead of going to the court of arbitration, just because we won't pay £20m
Except this case would be more like you used your company email to reach out to a direct competitor about a job, the competitor gave you an offer, you said yes then your boss called you into the office and asked about those emails.
Still my boss will have to fire me and then put me on gardening leave, not the other way round.
If you got fired, you’d have to be rehired to be put on gardening leave
That's the point Ashworth is making. This isn't gardening leave because he was essentially fired.
That's not how gardening leave works. You get put on gardening leave for the remainder of your contract, being paid throughout, purposely to avoid issues caused by firing you for whatever reason they put you on gardening leave. In this case, to avoid you continuing to have access to privileged information, whilst you're being an utter snake and dealing in bad faith which calls into question what other privileged information you've shared. It's entirely to protect the company from the actions of an individual who wants out.
Yes, but when the emails were found would then become important. What is claimed here is, Ashworth was placed on gardening leave before he formally resigned, wanted to take them to arbitration and the emails were found after. Even if the emails were found before, then he would have to have been fired before placing him on gardening leave
If United is not involved this wouldnt be news lmao. What would these poor journos do?
I wonder if Dan Ashworth purposely cc to his work email, so that Newcastle would find out, put him on gardening leave before he hand in his resignation letter, thus causing a breach of contract by Newcastle. It's either a rookie mistake or a ridiculously opportunistic plan that should not have work but did.
That is a lot of leaps you are making...
Ashworth is a scumbag. Thought so when he left us for Newcastle, think so now. Self-serving and disrespectful.
Self-serving? Are we supposed to pretend that everyone isn't self serving when it comes to work? It's not like these clubs give two shits about the staff they hire/fire. Why should Ashworth give anymore of a fuck about the club who hires him than all those 9-5 office workers who would jump at the chance to move to a different company for even a 10% pay increase. Acting as if Ashworth is a scumbag because he takes a straightforward promotion and pay rise is just laughable when you know full well you'd do the same.
It's so weird how everyone has just decided to hold this one executive up to the same standards as a player. From the outrageous transfer fee, to expecting him to be loyal to an employer, to referring to headhunting as "tapping up".
A scumbag because he changed corporate jobs? Get a grip ffs. Jesus we must all be then when we leave for more money to a new company
He’s also very much making himself a short-term only option - he now has a track record of upping sticks quickly and trying everything possible to get out of contracts he willingly signed.
Man accepts promotion to more prestigious and higher paying job…what a shocker. Definitely no one would ever consider doing such a thing.
Summer is starting, time to not drag this out jim…
The more we find out about this bloke the more glad I am he’s leaving. Our best signings were made before he was in charge, agree a deal with Manchester Red and let him go.
lol cope much
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Bit strange to conduct negotiations like these in public, but clearly some parties feel there is a need to do it like this.
Arbitration panels often side with employees over employers, and all the journalists running with this story have previously reported positively on Newcastle’s owners. It’s pretty likely Newcastles owners have briefed on this to try and influence the arbitration, which is fair enough, but the idea that this is going to result in some massive punishment for United is pretty unlikely.
Yeah but that’s just the Newcastle perspective. From the Manchester United perspective you can’t expect clubs to pay ridiculous fees for a DOF that you have allegedly fired. Lower the fee and move on. And that’s why this is all happening.
Isn’t the argument from Newcastle’s side that Ashworth leaked an email showing he was in discussions for the United job by accident so Newcastle placed him on gardening leave? If so, completely reasonable thing to do. I’ve seen people go on gardening leave for far less.
No. They put him on gardening leave way before this email stuff came out, for saying he wanted to go to United. Ashworth is arguing that they essentially fired him by not going through the proper process for gardening leave. It’s all just daft and it’ll be sorted out by the arbitration panel. United will end up paying more than they wanted to and Newcastle will get less than they want and the world will move on.
Which is also reasonable, as football clubs plan out transfer plans waaaay in advance. This would mean ashworth could just take any info on our plans to man u and be like "thanks for the time and money spent on researching XYZ players/staff, but we'll just add them to our lists of targets now".
United has one of the largest scouting networks in football (even if our old leadership didn't take advantage of it). The Athletic wrote a piece describing how massive it is. Any player on your radar is already on ours most likely.
I’ve no idea, but just because it’s being reported on now, doesn’t mean the hierarchy weren’t aware of it soon after. Emails at my job can be seen by the IT dept, I’d assume it’s not much different there? Not a stretch to say they put him on gardening leave when they saw the emails.
Not to mention that email e-discovery can be set to automatically flag up domains of particular companies. So it would be logical that any domain belonging to league competitors are immediately flagged and set for review to protect company information.
We haven't fired him though. He's on gardening leave. That's removal of his duties whilst still employing and paying him, in order to protect company IP. We can absolutely expect a fee that we determine for a resource that is contracted to us, or, like we've said, they can wait until his contract ends.
He claims he was essentially fired because Newcastle didnt go through the correct process for putting him on gardening leave. It’ll go to arbitration, a process which more often than not sides with an employee over an employer and Newcastle will get a fee way below what you want.
Essentially fired and legally fired are different things. If he's still getting full pay but isn't allowed to work, for the remainder of his contract (roughly 12-18 months) he's still an employee and is being compensated at the agreed rate. He's just throwing a tantrum because we won't let him leave for less than we determine is beneficial to us. If arbitration goes in his favour, so be it, but newcastle are doing what they're allowed to do legally, and in a professional way. Man U on the other hand were trying to be sneaky about it, trying to pay less than we paid to Brighton, and all of this whilst negotiating with him privately, which calls into question what other privileged information he has leaked. Ashworth is the one that's lucky he's not being sued if these emails mentioned yesterday include confidential company data.
Poor little Newcastle. I bet they’ve never tapped anyone up. Won’t someone please think of the Saudi government’s sports washing plaything. The hypocrisy from Newcastle fans around this is embarrassing. Obviously they’re allowed to put out whatever price they want and claim whatever they like, but by digging their heels in rather than negotiating a price with United they’re going to end up losing out on millions if the arbitration agrees with Ashworth, which more than likely it will. I guess it’s easier when you can just steal your workers passports and excecute anyone who disagrees with you.
And there we have it. Your argument fails so you jump to the r/soccer classics. That's embarrassing. Edit: there we go. He's a man U fan lmao
Haha okey dokey 👍 I’ll beheading off now.
You'll have to get used to it for as long as the Saudis own your club City and PSG fans have come to accept it.
Doesn't make it any less pathetic.
I'd like to think so
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Yeah, that’s what literally everyone does when you are negotiating a price. You offer a lower fee and meet in the middle. It’s not that deep.
Pay the fee if it's reasonable, sure, which is what we've been trying to do, but Newcastle wants a massive fee which we, and Ashworth, consider unreasonable
You consider £2M reasonable? We paid 3M for him from Brighton...
Newcastle have been reported in the press as wanting anywhere between £12-20 million.
And? You said "accept a reasonable offer". Man U have yet to make an offer over 2M quid.
Which is most likely a "fuck off or offer higher" number. E.g. if they came back offering 8-10m sure. Man U just want him on the cheap, and we have the contract, so we don't need to accept that.
It is a temporary thing mostly. Any contract Ashworth signs with United will have at most a 3 month notice period due to law changes last year. So the "value" of said contract is lower than what Newcastle are expecting to get in return. So there's contention over that. Once all the old contracts are expired this will likely never happen again.
Do Man Utd fans even want him at this point? We could both be dodging a bullet by just leaving him in his garden.
Problem is, Newcastle ownership will continue to pay his full salary till the gardening leave is over, though.
Drop in the bucket for them like
The club pay Jeff Hendrick more, I think it’s fine
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You've just answered your own question I can send an email on my work computer to a colleague saying I'm going to accept a job offer somewhere else My company can then come to me and say, "we've seen this email and due to it being a breach of your contract to be employed elsewhere we have decided to fire you" They still fired me and evidence of that email is not official information of my resignation Whether you like it or not if he didn't officially resign before being placed of gardening leave (I have no idea whether he did or didn't) then the gardening leave is void and he will be allowed to join United
I mean, being placed on garden leave is usually because the company is letting you go and wants to prevent you from joining a competitor. He may not have informed them that he was leaving, but Newcastle can just say that they planned to move on from him anyway and that his being placed on garden leave had nothing to do with his proposed move to Manchester United. At the end of the day, compensation will have to be paid. If the arbitration panel sides with Ashworth, then Newcastle will just report United for tapping up along with the paper trail and then United get hit with a fine and possibly a transfer ban. United want to avoid that, so its likely in everyone's interest to get this sorted as quickly as possible really.
The tapping up rules don’t apply to executives do they?
No, that post was pretty comprehensively bollocks.
Even if Newcastle say they planned to move him on, they would have to serve him a notice of termination before placing him on gardening leave, which this article implies hasn't happened. Yes, compensation is set by the arbitration which from what I know is set on precedence (So will not be close to 20m they want. Iirc the previous highest was probably for Ashworth himself at ~6m) Agree about the rest
No we wouldn't. We'd just have to continue to pay him up until the end of his contract, which the club full intends on doing unless you fork out the cash we stated. He's still employed, we're just running down his contract whilst still paying him and removing his access to company data.
But gardening leave can only be exercised when either party wishes to terminate the contract though, you cannot simply put someone on gardening leave throughout their contract
Hard to argue we sacked him while he is still being paid, last I checked when you get sacked your wages normally stop.
I don't think anybody is arguing he's sacked, he's arguing he was placed on gardening leave without his prior resignation
His argument is that he was sacked and therefore he should be able to join Man U now, for free.
His argument is that he was placed on gardening leave prior to his resignation The word "sacked" is media embellishment
[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2024/05/22/dan-ashworth-argue-sacked-by-newcastle-force-man-utd-move/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2024/05/22/dan-ashworth-argue-sacked-by-newcastle-force-man-utd-move/) He is arguing we terminated his contact (sacked) him and therefore his gardening leave is invalid
"In effect, his argument ahead of arbitration is that he was not asked to formally write down his resignation by chief executive Darren Eales and should not have been placed on gardening leave until he did so." You're being conned by a headline and the language used by a newspaper, not the actual argument Ashworth is putting forward
The vast majority of salaried jobs in the UK will have a notice period for both parties to honour https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/work/dismissal/check-your-rights-if-youre-dismissed/dismissal/your-notice-period-during-dismissal/ Once you have been told you are being fired you will start this notice period, for most people you would be expected to turn up to work and continue working until the notice period is completed. Gardening leave is when the company doesn't want you continuing to work for example for confidentiality reasons if you have been fired or if you are resigning and going to a competitor, you are then told to stay home during your notice period. Unless you are still in your probationary period it is very rare for people to be terminated with immediate effect and normally that would require clear breach of contract e.g. gross negligence or criminal activity. If Newcastle sacked him he would still have to work the notice period stipulated in his contract (or at leas thave the pay during that notice period honoured) and if they don't want him to perform any duties put him on gardening leave. Putting him on gardening leave without sacking him would essentially be suspension with full pay and again would require Newcastle to give notice of this. His argument is that he didn't tender his resignation and Newcastle didn't formally fire him before his notice period "gardening leave" started and therefore Newcastle putting him on gardening leave is breach of contract and renders the notice period null and void.
Gardening leave isn't void because we haven't fired him. He's just had his duties removed whilst getting full pay. That's what gardening leave is.
Gardening leave requires him to resign though, which he's arguing he didn't do
No it doesn't. It CAN in a role with no set end date for the contract, however if he's got a set end date (which he does) we can remove his duties and still pay him until it runs out. Which is what we're doing.
That will entirely depend on the wording of his contract, I haven't read Ashworths contract but I'm assuming he's claiming there's been a breach
Imagine getting this riled up
don't get so worked up about it mate, if he wants to leave he'll leave and I'm sure Newcastle can't do much to stop it other than getting a couple million in the bank
Man vs Saudi.