Put very simply, because it's been talked about loads, it's because he left in January when we were in the middle of a relegation battle, instead of seeing that out and then leaving in the summer. The way he went about getting a move got a lot of peoples backs up too. Being out with a phantom injury to force the club's hand.
How do we know it was a phantom injury?
And we don't know if he "forced" the clubs's hand or they (ashley, llambias) invented that "injury" because they knew that he was going. (and didn't want to take the risk in seeing him get injured.)
For me, it's obvious that it was the latter. It seems, when it comes to the Given issue, Ashley and his crew are not the bad guys all of the sudden.