Footballers, contracts and employment law

[Bruce Wayne]

Branching out from the VDM thread as it doesn't seem to be attracting much attention there.

It was posted yesterday about a case involving Webster that seeks to give even greater power to players in contractual issues and transfers.

According to UK employment law a player can be sacked for a major balls up or a series of minor ones. Redundancy pay is then 1 weeks pay for each year of their employment. It goes up to 1.5 weeks pay for each year for older people so managers would fall into this category.

So, my question is, considering this is the law, why on earth do players and managers so frequently get sacked and their contract paid in full?

 

[SuitsBlue]

possibly because not honouring a contract to the full would send a message to the rest of the current employees and and would be future employees.

the fact they all know that they are all on the same gravy train and that it works in cycles anyway means everyone staying chums can be for the best in the long run.

 

[monty]

I have wondered why we have taken issue in the courts with the wastrel VDM and the only conclusion I can come to is that it would effect future signings, players could be put off by what would be described as a Draconian club

 

[atrottel]

Having dealt with this quite a lot for a while, there are a whole series of formal disciplinary procedures that have to be gone through, which include giving the employee appropriate training and opportunity to improve after warnings. I would imagine that a highly-paid lawyer would find it easy to make mincemeat of employment law if it was ever brought to bear on football club playing staff.

"So, Mr van der Meyde, after warning you about your conduct, the club gave you no opportunity to display the effects of the further guidance and training you received?"
"No, sir, I only got to sit on the bench once in 20 matches."

Next case.

 

[TX Bill]

In the USA, players in the major sports have quite a bit of power due to the player unions. You just can't "fire" a player these days unless they've had like 3 or 4 chances. The offenses have to be pretty egregious (see one Michael Vick) for the leagues to outright punt (no pun intended) the player out of work.

It's only recently the the new NFL commissioner has started to clamp down on player behavior (see one Adam "Pacman" Jones) and started to set a precedent for future behavior.

 

[linglong]

Surely in VDM case we could get him out on breach of contract??

Such as not turning up for training and the like