Billy Joel - We Didn’t Start The Fire

Sister Sledge - We Are Family

No he’s not, he’s just forgotten to mention why it took longer - they forgot to turn the oven on 😁

Roy Orbison - Pretty Woman

Do you agree with my interpretation I posted a while ago?: Loan agreement entered into - ‘sueable’ losses Permanent contract agreed but not entered into - no ‘sueable’ losses

Or even know about the losses…

I don’t think anyone knows because that one hasn’t gone to arbitration Based on the O’Brien one I guess we’d all go for incompetence…

A look in the mirror might suffice…

As I’ve just mentioned, we didn’t just propose the loan agreement (a contract in itself) we also executed it. What we didn’t do is execute the playing contract related to a permanent transfer - we merely agreed what that contract would be should the option be exercised.

23:28 of the timeline confirms the loan agreement had been fully executed - this is a standard form of which I can only find the Irish FA’s version but this states… ‘Upon execution of this standard professional contract the club shall submit the registration of the player to the IFA in accordance with the relevant regulations’ Assuming the EFL version has the same clause, then we’ve breached it and could be subject to provable losses related to the loan only 20:47 mentions a contract that would be entered into if the option (to buy) was exercised. Given this means this contract (following a permanent transfer) hadn’t yet been entered into we can’t be subject to losses in relation to this. Edited to add: We also entered into an option deed - to breach this we would have to have been promoted and then refused to sign the player. I still can’t see the claimable loss from this as if we go up we could still offer to buy him at the same fee and on the same terms to the player. Clearly either could reject this, but what they couldn’t do is reject this and also sue for losses.

I imagine we will have to pay the EFL costs i can see an argument for having to pay O’Briens appearance bonuses and having to compensate Forest for his basic salary. I’m not seeing any other provable costs. I absolutely think we’re at fault - you can’t not do so having read the judgment.

20:47 refers to a draft contract that would be entered into if the option was exercised. So the contract hasn’t been entered into and therefore no losses can be linked to it. That’s my interpretation anyway.

I wonder if it hinges on if the contract includes something along the lines of ‘subject to the successful registration of the player’?

Could they have included him in their squad whilst an appeal was pending? I genuinely don’t know

It doesn’t mean nothing but it doesn’t mean everything either.

I think you’d have to prove negligence for costs to be playable. At what point incompetence becomes negligence, I don’t know…

I don’t think Forest could have chosen to put O’Brien on their squad list whilst we were appealing but I may not wrong. I personally think the squad lists are a bad idea in this case without them Forest could now choose to play him should they wish to do so.

Did we take the other one to arbitration too! Im only asking as I’m wondering if we made identical mistakes or different ones!

Purely on the £10 million fee, surely you’ll concede that if we’re not promoted Forest wouldn’t have been due the money and if we are they could still choose to sell him to us for the same fee. I think they’d find it hard to prove , if we don’t go up, that we would have done if the signing had been completed. Huge potential losses indeed, but I’d argue very few provable ones. Still a big fuck up though!

Why would we have to pay O’Brien’s wages when he still has a contract with Forest? Appearance bonuses etc I could just about understand but not basic wage O’Brien himself would have to mitigate any perceived losses - I believe he can still move to the MLS, it might not be ideal for him but it is still an option that’s available.

I think if they wanted to do that they shouldn’t have gone to arbitration because we can now all see in black and white that it wasn’t (solely) his fault

Shouldn’t who they’ve drawn be a factor in the odds?

Go on Mercer…

Sobers?