Chris_R

it's unquestionably too early for a bouycott like, no fucking point talking about it start by hitting the sky games before xmas with something visual like a late walk in, when he fucks us in january and we're rushing headlong to relegation then is the time to pull out the bigger guns baby steps basically, our soopafans just won't do it (might never tbh) What if he lets us spend a bit in January. Not unprecedented, it happened with McClaren, and we all know he'll return to form after that because leopards/spots. But it'll placate the masses enough if he does it, and I reckon there's a decent chance he will. For my money, any boycott should be before the January window. Otherwise we risk him doing just enough to force us to push it back to the summer.

I'm not saying that you can't find higher-paying retail positions, just that this one doesn't seem disproportionately low for the industry as a whole. There's plenty of sticks to hit Ashley with, but I can't see how this is one of them.

Yeah I can't imagine what people expect that job to pay to be honest. You're one step up from the people on the shop floor, who'll likely be on minimum wage which is what, just over £16k on a 40-hour contract?

Still a cunt.

I don't care about any of that, minimising their tax exposure, whatever. My problem is not that they're doing a lot of illegal things, but that they're doing a lot of things which simply are not in the interests of NUFC but instead set up to favour Sports Direct.

The "Transfers are hard" thing would wash if other clubs were having the same problems. They're not. They also said things like "we were after players whose clubs wanted more than our transfer record" as if this is some wonderful act of generosity and drive to better the team, when A) that transfer record has stood for 13 years, including all 11 years of Ashley's reign and B) they still didn't manage to break it. It's pathetic.

Whilst what you say is true about the club just lying to their faces and effectively laughing at them, I respect the guys for going along and making the club tell those lies. That's something that the club can be called out on, whereby if we let them just sit in silence there's no lies to question. It's like when the police interview criminals, just because you know they're not going to admit to the murder* and know they're going to lie to you or whatever, that is no need to not ask them questions. You hope they trip themselves up and you have them bang to rights. As long as the right questions are asked, which looking at the minutes from this one they were, then I'm fully behind the people who go. *Oh and if Mike Ashley's lawyers are reading this, it's an analogy. The only thing I think he's killed is this football club.

"Shit, they've spotted us breaking the rules. What should we do?" "Just change the rules" Whole thing wants burning to the fucking ground, honestly.

It'll be deducted from Rafa's transfer budget in January. Hahaha "transfer budget"!

This shows exactly how much credibility the rest of what he said last night should be given. He's simply incapable of telling the truth. Everything out of his mouth is just a massive fucking lie.

Well hopefully that "moving forward" will be soon. There's no harm in the next few protests being local, as the club is local, but if local means trying to get people to stand outside SD yet again then people are going to quickly get bored. This needs to move forward whilst we have momentum.

Well they were the numbers given on here, iirc. Apologies if I've misremembered them. Irrespective, my general point stands. This thing needs to move forward not stay still. If the next protest is just standing outside another branch of SD then I think people will start to drop off. I may sound negative but I'm actually trying to be positive. We have a chance to make a difference here, a chance to do something. Let's not fuck it up.

So there were 400 people at the first meeting, and 150 at this one. Yet we don't want a boycott in case it backfires and things fizzle out. Let me just put something out there: Standing outside a different branch of SD every match with a few banners is not going to drum up support or increase supporter engagement. People need to feel like they're part of something which is moving forward, at the moment this feels quite stationary. People need something to rally behind. Something to believe in. Something to give them hope. Something new, something that's pushing the boundaries. If between now and Christmas the only action is going to be standing outside various different branches of SD, then this movement is dead and Ashley has won. Again.

Wasn't the 7-1 v Spurs during Robson's reign? Don't disagree with the general sentiment though.

KBA wouldn't have to pay off Rupert Murdoch, they'd only have to pay off whoever has enough clout to make this happen within the network itself. That's an infinitely smaller amount.

I suspect Ashley is banned from most "all you can eat" places.

We've waited 11 years Lawro, you fucking plank. That's 22 transfer windows. Yeah, let's give him one more and see if things change.

This has angered me so much I'm going to have to put a few more reviews on. Yeah, he can keep getting them removed. But that's far more effort for him as an individual than it is for any of us as individuals to keep submitting them. It'll be like Sisyphus rolling that boulder up the hill, every time he gets near the top and thinks he's cleared Trustpilot, the boulder rolls back to the bottom and he has to start again. I can, and will, do this forever.

Maybe not sacked, but players have contracts cancelled by mutual consent all the time. Often that's a sacking in all but name, the player agrees not to dispute it and it goes down as "mutual consent" so they can say they weren't sacked when they approach their next club. See Ranger, Nile. There's good reason you don't see sackings often though - 99% of unwanted players on silly contracts they'll never replicate elsewhere are clever enough to at least turn up their place of employment.

There'll be no such clause, and there doesn't need to be. The contract will say you are expected to attend training. He's refused to do so, which is refusing to do his job. That's gross misconduct and an immediate (IF the employer wishes to enforce it) sacking in any job in the land. The contract doesn't need to say explicitly "If you don't turn up to training you're fired" any more than my job needs to say if I don't turn up to work I'll be fired. If I don't turn up though, I'll be just as sacked and no amount of me saying "But it didn't explicitly say that in my contract" is going to help me. It's gross misconduct. They're not trying to recoup the transfer fee, they've written that off. They're trying to not pay his wages anymore, which are crippling them. Honestly, I hope they get utterly rinsed in the court and they're found at fault, and have to pay him every penny of his contract. But if it's as it appears, that he just hasn't gone to training when he should have done for a month with no excuse, I can't see how this isn't an open and shut case where he's been fairly dismissed. If that happened to me in my job I'd be out, and the law is the same for all contracts of employment. The only differential is that normally football clubs want to keep their wayward players so don't enforce their rights to terminate. Here they want rid and he's given them an excuse.

That's the thing though, it isn't. Employment law is employment law. It's universal. There's no special "football employment law". What IS different is that footballers are regarded as more important assets - MOST of the time - in their jobs than you or I. The further down the list of skilled jobs you go, the less slack you get cut. That's not because the law changes, it's because your value to your employer changes. Let's imagine 3 hypothetical people; a shelf stacker, a brain surgeon, and a footballer. If you stack shelves at Tesco or whatever, and you don't turn up for a few days, you're liable to be binned off. Because you're incredibly easy to replace. Anyone off the street can do your job with a few hours training. If you're a brain surgeon, you'll still get a bit of a bollocking but you'll probably be still in employment because you're much harder to replace and a good asset to your employer. They've invested time in you and money, and replacing you - whilst possible - will be quite disruptive to their organisation. That's not because the law is different, it's because you're more valuable to them. They still could sack you if they want but they probably won't want to. There's limits though, if you persistently cause trouble you'll be out the door just as above. If you're a footballer, and they've spent £20m on acquiring you, and they have a realistic hope of recouping that money, then there's no danger at all that going AWOL for a week or a month will result in your dismissal. That's not because the law is any different, they'd be ENTITLED to sack you, but they won't because the club will lose all that financial investment in you. And if you do get sacked, there's a very real possibility that you'll end up lining up against your club for a rival. You can basically do what you want, you're fireproof. Again though, the actual law is not any different here, the club are just choosing to let the player off and not enforce their legal right to terminate the contract, because doing so will be detrimental to the club themselves. Finally, now let's imagine that the footballer is no longer an asset but a liability. You have NO chance of getting your £20m back (or whatever, that number is irrelevant), and you've sunk down the leagues. You can't afford the player's wages. You actively WANT the player to leave at any price. You're looking for an excuse. The player goes AWOL. This player has less value to the club than the shelf stacker above, they're a hinderance to the club not an asset. So instead of disregarding their legal right to terminate the player's contract as above, they enforce it. The law doesn't change in any of these examples, it's the same for all employees of all levels of all businesses. It's just only optional for the employer to enforce the law depending on the value of the employee. High value employees will get cut more slack, lower value ones will be out on their ear in no time. Maybe that's not fair, but it's how it works.

He's only entitled to sit on his contract if he actually bothers to turn up to his place of work. Football is no different to any other job, if you don't turn up for long enough, your employer is entitled (though not obliged) to sack you. I think the player has been amazingly stupid here if he's just not bothered to turn up to work for long enough to get sacked.

Like a lack of quotes makes any difference. He's publicly stated he wants to sell us before, multiple times, with quotes from his own mouth. He's a pathological liar. This "blows over" the day we're sold, and not a single second before. At that point he can go live whatever life he wants and I'll pay him no further heed, but until that point I'll do everything within my admittedly small remit to annoy or disrupt him, his cronies, and his business interests. I realise my small remit is indeed small, but there's tens of thousands of us and together we can have a serious impact on his ability to trade and operate in society on any level. The only way he'll ever sell is if we're more trouble than we're worth, but I genuinely believe that's within our hands. We've just got to keep turning the screw. Individually, we're all responsible for not letting up and then collectively the pressure will tell.

This. Alienating customers and suppliers before he's even properly got his chair under the desk. This isn't SD where you sell last year's fashions to the desperate and skint who can't afford to go elsewhere for their chav clothes.

League below the pub league which they pissed (themselves in) last year.