JOE ROYLE - money grabbing weasel...

[Easy 10]

This is unbelievable.

Joe Royle has just successfully sued Man City for £422,000, following his sacking in May 2001 after they were relegated from the Premiership. He was sacked by the board two days after their final match of the season against Chelsea, which confirmed Citys relegation back down to D1.

His contract with them stipulated that he would be due a £400,000 bonus if Man City were still in the Premiership when he left the club. Even though he was sacked two days AFTER Citys final Premiership match, and their relegation had already been confirmed, the court has decided that the 2000-2001 season wasn't officially over at that point, as "several Playoff matches were still to be played, and administration matters to be completed".

So Royle took City down, and has now creamed off a £400k bonus he should only have been entitled to had he kept them up.
Now I suppose you could applaud his nause in this - he spotted a loophole and exploited it to the full to extract a bonus he wasn't supposed to get, and you could say "more fool City". But what a vile piece of opportunism on a totally ridiculous technicality.

I hope for his sake Ipswich don't get Man City in the cup.

 

[saltash seagull]

after taking city back up 2 divisions they treated him disgracefully

 

[Easy 10]

£4m George Weah, £3.65m Paulo Wanchope, £3m Richard Dunne, £2m Steve Howey, £3m Darren Huckerby, £2.5m Alfie Haaland...some of the reasons why City went down that season. Plus the reputed drinking culture and lack of discipline at the club cited by more than one of the players after they cut and run.

He worked wonders to get them back to the Premiership, but lost the plot when he was given money to spend, and his sacking was hardly a surprise in the end. I just can't believe how lawyers can claim Man Citys season wasn't over, two days after they were relegated on the final day !

 

[Beach Hut]

Seems totally farcical to me.

Perhaps we can take the Football League to court - we weren't relegated two years ago !

 

[Easy 10]

Perhaps we can take the Football League to court - we weren't relegated two years ago !

Absolutely.
By that logic, our season wasn't over that afternoon at Grimsby. Our season actually carried on until everyone had finished their Playoff games, and we'd dotted our i's and crossed our t's on the administrative side. Wish I'd have known at the time - the journey home wouldn't have been anywhere near as miserable knowing that we hadn't been relegated yet.

 

[El Presidente]

Joe Royle is a scouser, any they are expert at finding legal loopholes for things of this nature, I should know, following my involvement in the tax affairs of a famous goofy-toothed comic from that region many years ago!!

 

[Tooting Gull]

I'm afraid this thread has completely missed the point. Living to the letter of the law is an occasionally infuriating fact of life for everyone, individual or corporate.

What seems fairly clear from this case is that if City had waited a relatively short time, they could have sacked him without the bigger payout. That makes the board complete fuckwits, bordering on criminal negligence. If I was a City fan I'd know who to blame, and it's cost them £500,000 with costs. And leaves Royle unable to beleive his luck that the idiots getting rid of him were so dense.

 

[Easy 10]

I'm afraid this thread has completely missed the point. Living to the letter of the law is an occasionally infuriating fact of life for everyone, individual or corporate.

What seems fairly clear from this case is that if City had waited a relatively short time, they could have sacked him without the bigger payout. That makes the board complete fuckwits, bordering on criminal negligence. If I was a City fan I'd know who to blame, and it's cost them £500,000 with costs. And leaves Royle unable to beleive his luck that the idiots getting rid of him were so dense.

Hindsight is, as ever, a wonderful thing.
Whilst I'm not carrying any torches for the Man City board, I think they made a more than reasonable assumption that 2 days after the final match of the Premiership season had been played, and had seen City go down, they were no longer a Premiership club.

They. Had. Been. Relegated.

The season was over. The Nationwide Football League Playoffs bared zero relevence for them - the FA Carling Premiership season had come to a close, Champions had been crowned, and City had lost their fight against the drop. End of story surely. The final game of the season is just that - the final game of the season. Game over. Season over. Wait a "relatively short time ?" How long is that ? Once the final whistle of the final match of the season goes, we all take that to be the END of the season, don't we ? If not, how long exactly do we have to wait ? Or are Premiership teams not actually relegated till August, when they physically kick off in the Nationwide ??

Its all very well now saying the Man City board were "fuckwits", but they only made a call that every other Man City fan and football fan in general would have made. I gather they are appealing - with good grounds - and I hope that someone see's sense here and reverses this bloody ridiculous decision.

To collect that £400k bonus, Royle had to leave Man City as a Premiership club. They were RELEGATED. Yet due to a ludicrous piece of slithery lawyerspeak, he has somehow still weedled out his £400k bonus anyway. Whether you like Man City or not, whether you think they treated him well or not, that is just plain WRONG.

 

[GVR]

Easy 10 made an interesting point here. At what stage of the season is a team officially relegated/promoted? Is it the moment the final whistle goes in the final match (e.g. when we won in Cardiff)? Or is it at some arbitrary point in time between the end of one season and the beginning of the next? Or does a team that finishes in a promotion place then have to apply to the League/Premiership to be accepted in the higher division? We discussed this at 5-a-side last Monday and nobody seemed to know. Hope somebody can clear it up.

 

[harold robbins]

Can`t see why Rolye should be criticised for taking a payment which, whatever the background, he seems to have been legally entitled to. Having been sacked by them why on earth should he feel bad about it?. The track record of Man City in getting rid of managers over the years is appalling.. at last they`ve found one who fights back!.

 

[Easy 10]

Can`t see why Rolye should be criticised for taking a payment which, whatever the background, he seems to have been legally entitled to.

Oh come on.
He was only supposed to be entitled to that bonus if they were still a Premiership club. They had been relegated 48 hours earlier.
Were they still supposedly a Premiership club for the rest of the summer ?

Put it this way - if Coppell had been sacked 2 days after we were relegated at Grimsby, and he had still claimed a hefty "thanks, you kept us up" bonus after a court case, I think I would be a wee bit upset at that.

 

[Pavilionaire]

Joe Royle is in the right here and Man City's Board of Directors are most definitely in the wrong.

They have showed extreme negligence and let the City fans down badly.

Let's remember the context - Royle, overall, had some success at City and was only taking what he was contractually entitled to. Good luck to him.

 

[Easy 10]

Let's remember the context - Royle, overall, had some success at City and was only taking what he was contractually entitled to. Good luck to him.

All things aside, whether you like Joe Royle or think he was unfairly dismissed or not, he was NOT contractually entitled to that bonus.

The bonus was payable if he left them as a Premiership club. He got them relegated from the Premiership that season. So how is he entitled to that bonus ? Can someone tell me please, cos I am struggling to understand. I must be missing something here.

 

[Timbo]

£4m George Weah, £3.65m Paulo Wanchope, £3m Richard Dunne, £2m Steve Howey, £3m Darren Huckerby, £2.5m Alfie Haaland...some of the reasons why City went down that season. Plus the reputed drinking culture and lack of discipline at the club cited by more than one of the players after they cut and run.

He worked wonders to get them back to the Premiership, but lost the plot when he was given money to spend, and his sacking was hardly a surprise in the end. I just can't believe how lawyers can claim Man Citys season wasn't over, two days after they were relegated on the final day !

Although those figures sound ridiculous, just a few years ago transfer fees were that silly. Remember we got over 100 grand for Paul Holsgrove. Today we'd be very lucky to get that for Danny Cullip.

I think it's hilarious by the way. The premiership is no longer football and when someone in it gets shafted in it, it's just funny!

Although we are just one division below City, and if we have a good start and them a bad one, we could be just 3 or 4 places adrift, the reality is that we are light years away from being a Man City. 400 grand they won't notice. It would bankrupt us.

 

[Pavilionaire]

He DID leave them as a Premiership club, the season wasn't over!

Christ almighty, the point here is that people who run football clubs have to start getting their act together. In this instance City cocked up on a technicality, so they must pay. Heads should roll over this, it's an absolute disgrace.

Surely the Albion as much as anyone should appreciate the significance of boardroom mismanagement?

 

[Easy 10]

He DID leave them as a Premiership club, the season wasn't over!

So two days after the final match of the season has been played in the Premiership, the season isn't over ?

When does it finish then ?

 

[beorhthelm]

All things aside, whether you like Joe Royle or think he was unfairly dismissed or not, he was NOT contractually entitled to that bonus.

Well he clearly WAS entitled to the money, otherwise his case wouldnt have been successfull... QED.

Obviously we are missing some detail concerning FA/FL/Premiership rules as to when, officially, the season is considered to have ended. It seems the board of Man City where also unaware of or ignored this detail. That makes them pretty incompetent in my eyes.

 

[Pavilionaire]

I'm not surprised that the courts found in Royle's favour.

I wouldn't expect the season to be technically over the day following the final game, and would expect there to be all sorts of administration issues to be sorted out regarding invoicing and payment of monies, registration of teams and players, loans being up, etc.

I was also under the impression most players contracts went up to either 31st May or 30th June. Very few leave a club the day or week after the final match of the season.

What about teams who get 'promoted' but whose grounds are not adequate to fulfil criteria for their new division? They are not deemed to be promoted until the case has been heard, i.e. Inverness CT.

Likewise, teams such as the Albion do not suddenly appear as a Coca-Cola Championship team the day after winning the play-off final. It takes a few weeks to start to be listed in the CCC and not a Division 2 side.

Seems like a schoolboy error has been committed here.

 

[Marshy]

The worlds gone mad.
Royle gets a shit load of money he dosent deserve, and so does Mrs Parlour....this really pisses me off.

 

[Rougvie]

I played golf with him last year in a work do in Spain.

Top bloke, and well done to him.