TheBrownBottle

My understanding was that Man City were going after the changes made to the rules back at the start of the year, which changed where the burden of proof lay re FMV of sponsorships. It wasn't to throw out FMV generally.

There's release clauses in my industry - I have had similar clauses in most of my contracts re leaving etc. Edit: also for training paid for by the employer, etc. But these are reasonable costs incurred and not out of sight for a well-paid professional. The issue is not whether or not the such clauses exist elsewhere, but whether or not they would stack up as fair and reasonable in an employment court - and I doubt that a person locked into an eight year contract which would take a nine-figure sum to buy out would be held to it by law. It is a basic principle of English law that punitive clauses in contracts are unenforcable.

Yep, and that would increase the chances of a leak

Yes, although it could be the case that the ruling required limited amendment to the rules, which would not be a 'win' for either side. Ultimately, the clubs are members of the PL and sign up voluntarily - the don't have to play in it. I'd still be mildly surprised if the adjudicators simply told the PL to tear up the rules that the vast majority of their members willingly voted through. It is an incorporated association.

There's lots and lots of commentary re commercial law etc, but football generally doesn't stack up vs commercial or employment law. Where else can you be held to a multiple year contract with a buyout beyond the means of any individual employed? Football's player registration system isn't in line with general employment law. But it still exists (and has been pushed back in the past, via the Eastham and Bosman cases).

Definitely - I commented earlier in the thread that there was a lot of 2 + 2 = [insert number here] going on from the football press on the day the news 'leaked', followed by fevered backpedaling. My suspicion is that if it was seismic it likely would have leaked out - my guess would be that the ruling isn't a 'win' for either party

I thought that there had been. The issue is that it is confidential - the first time we'll get anything confirmed is via any changes to the PL rulebook. So far, no changes.

Yep. Like asking a tenant if someone has asked the landlord about buying the house. Why would they know?

100% - I'd say he's strawmanning, but he's not that smart. He takes a bunch of assumptions and guesses and makes confident statements - just look at his replies to comments under that video. He doesn't understand construction or council planning whatsoever. Why would NUFC approach Urban Green - and even if they did, why would the club not issue NDAs? He thinks that if Eddie Leezers comes knocking, they'll have to give up the facts. The man's ego is unreal.

Watched that ten min parcel of shite from Eddie Leezers. Right load of bollocks, the man makes huge leaps from very little. The idea that a replacement area +10% would be impossible to find etc. Total shite. Besides, if the club were to build on Castle Leazes, it wouldn't require the entire demolition of the existing park - Eddie Leezers seems to think it'll be plonked right in the middle of the lake ...

Leazes - sorry, 'Leezers' - Park is nice, and there should be as little encroachment as possible if a proposed ground was to go there. And the land currently occupied by SJP should be converted to an extension for the park.

No, they won't have a casting vote - the support doesn't own the club If they've worked out our support by this point, they'll know that they'll grumble a bit and do absolutely nothing about it.

You can cost plan based on assumptions, so you wouldn’t necessarily need to do ground investigation work. In fact, given that the Metro is underneath, there aren’t as many latent in-ground condition risks as most projects of this scope and scale would have. But that visibility doesn’t make it easier - I’d rather be worried about extra over costs for unexpected rock than be building over an underground train station

Account with fewer than 500 followers claiming that we’ll pay £1bn to get 10,000 of the cheapest seats in the house added I’ll take this one with a pinch of salt I reckon If such an extension is feasible, it’s not going to be £1bn. The issue is whether or not it is feasible - and it is a pretty extraordinary civil engineering challenge to extend the current Gallowgate. I still don’t see how it’s done, given that the span is too wide for a steel frame to retain integrity, and you can’t put pile foundations in under Strawberry Place without causing the Metros a few issues …

If you went with the official travel club, you were pretty much guaranteed an away ticket even if you didn't have a ST. Sometimes there'd be a dozen or so of us from my school going to away games in the mid-90s. If didn't want to travel with the 'sarnie squad' (the official travel club was of course a dry coach), then you'd have to apply for a ticket and there'd be more chance of not getting a ticket. All cup games relied on a points system.

Which it is - or it isn't any less central than SJP. No-one would be going anywhere near SJP if they went into the city if they weren't going to the match

The Arena site is in the city …

The IPA doesn’t have the phonemes to cover a mackem’s attempt at vowel sounds

David Conn once described our support (and city generally) as having a ‘cap-doffing’ air about it - a bit too respectful of authority. I reckon there’s truth to that - we never stood up in seated areas pre-Ashley

Some of them have Metro maps on their bedroom walls with each station assigned a % of the population that is Mackem. These maps also have the word ‘Ponteland’ crudely scribbled before ‘Airport’.

And Derby aren’t Wimbledon, so a sizeable portion of that will be Derby fans

Nothing at all to worry about re the match. Played in first gear against opposition which didn’t require us to shift into second. Why run yourself into the ground if you can get the result you need? Through to the next round for a more blood and thunder affair. There was a time when we often didn’t win these sort of games.

Maybe we can swap him for Guehi in January?

I hope he becomes a great midfielder. But he looked lightweight and out of his depth several times in the PL last season - but I’m sure he’ll develop

Miley didn’t look anything like the same level when he was playing last season. The lad clearly has bags of potential, but he looked lightweight and not quite ready just yet.