Football: The Closed Season

[mormont]

Following on from the last thread:

You can't make players redundant because they refused to sign a contract extension. If you've offered them an extension, you've told them that you have work for them to do and therefore by definition they are not redundant. Also, the principle of forcing players to sign contract extensions was litigated already by Jean-Marc Bosman - you can't do it - and threatening to withhold current wages as leverage will see you in an employment tribunal where you will be told to pay the wages plus legal costs and compensation.

So the contract situation is a real issue. But clubs should have enough players under contract to fulfil the fixtures, if a way can be found to play them safely. If they can't do that with the original squad, that doesn't seem to me to be an insurmountable problem, not compared to failing to complete the season at all.

That said, I also think the idea that players are young and love playing and so won't care about coronavirus risk from playing is not likely to bear out. More than one player has spoken out about the risk they'd be placing on their families by playing. And there's no way to play football without that risk. So it might become inevitable that the season is ended sooner or later.

 

[ljkeane]

7 minutes ago, mormont said:

You can't make players redundant because they refused to sign a contract extension. If you've offered them an extension, you've told them that you have work for them to do and therefore by definition they are not redundant. Also, the principle of forcing players to sign contract extensions was litigated already by Jean-Marc Bosman - you can't do it - and threatening to withhold current wages as leverage will see you in an employment tribunal where you will be told to pay the wages plus legal costs and compensation.

To clarify my point from the previous thread, no, you can't threaten to make someone redundant to force them to sign a new contract, it's just that if players are going to refuse to work because fear of being infected with coronavirus it's likely to come up before the point of needing a new contract. On reflection though making them redundant probably wouldn't be worth it. There's a decent chance clubs would be legally justified in just not paying them until the end of their contract or paying them statutory sick pay which is effectively the same thing as far as Premier League footballers wages is concerned.

[mormont]

Again, it's not that making them redundant 'wouldn't be worth it'. It's not legally possible because they aren't actually redundant.

Nor is there a legal justification for refusing to pay the players. And the idea that their contracts don't contain provisions for enhanced sick pay is so out there as to be utterly wild. Even if it were not explicitly in their contract that they get enhanced sick pay. and I assure you it is, clubs pay sick players full wages as a matter of custom and practice and so they can't change that unilaterally.

I do know what I'm talking about here.

[ljkeane]

13 minutes ago, mormont said:

Nor is there a legal justification for refusing to pay the players.

I think you're overstating how certain you are about that. There's definitely legal justification for not paying someone who refuses to come to work. The government very specifically hasn't said whether companies are obliged to pay someone who refuses to come into work because they want to maintain social distancing.

It's a bit of a legal question mark but, considering we have a Tory government, I think it's unlikely to end up coming down on the side of employers being required to pay full wages to people refusing to work.

13 minutes ago, mormont said:

And the idea that their contracts don't contain provisions for enhanced sick pay is so out there as to be utterly wild. Even if it were not explicitly in their contract that they get enhanced sick pay.

I'm sure there absolutely are provisions for enhanced sick pay in their contracts. If they actually were sick clubs would be required to pay them in line with that. Again, it's really not clear that choosing to self isolate is covered under those provisions though. Maybe players contracts do cover social distancing during a pandemic but I'd be pretty surprised.

[mormont]

29 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

I think you're overstating how certain you are about that. There's definitely legal justification for not paying someone who refuses to come to work. The government very specifically hasn't said whether companies are obliged to pay someone who refuses to come into work because they want to maintain social distancing. It's a bit of a legal question mark but, considering we have a Tory government, I think it's unlikely to end up coming down on the side of employers being required to pay full wages to people refusing to work.

I've spent most of the last month furloughing over a hundred employees and because of that, attending seminars, reading briefings and disussing with colleagues around coronavirus and how it relates to employment law and practice.

While it's true to say that employers could, in some circumstances, refuse to pay staff who refused to attend work due to concerns over coronavirus, this is not one of those circumstances IMO. Football clubs could not possibly give players assurances that they were not at risk, because you can't play football that way.

Sure, clubs can try to force them to play. That's just going to wind up in an employment tribunal, or in court. And now the club (even if they win, which is unlikely, given that guidance from ACAS, the TUC and others would not have been followed) has a bunch of players who want to leave, may refuse to play, and whose transfer value just went through the floor as a result. Result.

29 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

I'm sure there absolutely are provisions for enhanced sick pay in their contracts. If they actually were sick clubs would be required to pay them in line with that. Again, it's really not clear that choosing to self isolate is covered under those provisions though. Maybe players contracts do cover social distancing during a pandemic but I'd be pretty surprised.

Sure. But it was you who suggested just paying SSP was an option.

[ljkeane]

44 minutes ago, mormont said:

I've spent most of the last month furloughing over a hundred employees and because of that, attending seminars, reading briefings and disussing with colleagues around coronavirus and how it relates to employment law and practice.

I don't specifically work in HR but my role peripherally covers some of it so I had access to a reasonable amount of the discussion in the HR and legal department in the multi billion pound company I work for over what we were going to do about people voluntarily self isolating prior to the job retention scheme being announced. The conclusion that, presumably expensively assembled, group of people came to on the legal obligations around that was basically 'we don't really know'.

48 minutes ago, mormont said:

Sure, clubs can try to force them to play. That's just going to wind up in an employment tribunal, or in court. And now the club (even if they win, which is unlikely, given that guidance from ACAS, the TUC and others would not have been followed) has a bunch of players who want to leave, may refuse to play, and whose transfer value just went through the floor as a result. Result.

There's no real guarantee that situation is going to significantly change next season or even the season after that. Player wages is the most significant expense the clubs have, if you think clubs are just going to continue paying them millions of pounds to do nothing indefinitely I think that's nuts. It's strikes me as pretty unlikely they'll be legally required to continue to pay them full wages in return for nothing.

Clubs probably don't want to rock the boat at the moment with players on longterm contracts but players whose contracts come to an end this summer would be a bit of a different situation.

53 minutes ago, mormont said:

Sure. But it was you who suggested just paying SSP was an option.

Fair enough. Perhaps I should have said pay the players at some nominal level they think they can justify to avoid the trouble of actually dismissing them. I don't know what that would be, sick pay or maybe up to the level of government furlough subsidies, something like that.

[mormont]

2 hours ago, ljkeane said:

I don't specifically work in HR but my role peripherally covers some of it so I had access to a reasonable amount of the discussion in the HR and legal department in the multi billion pound company I work for over what we were going to do about people voluntarily self isolating prior to the job retention scheme being announced. The conclusion that, presumably expensively assembled, group of people came to on the legal obligations around that was basically 'we don't really know'.

Accurate, at that time. Though the non-binding guidance from various sources I read was to place them on sick leave, which is what mostly happened. Some companies placed such staff on unpaid leave, I believe. Nobody tried to terminate their contracts, though, at least that I'm aware of, because that would be legally very risky even for an ordinary schmoe.

2 hours ago, ljkeane said:

There's no real guarantee that situation is going to significantly change next season or even the season after that. Player wages is the most significant expense the clubs have, if you think clubs are just going to continue paying them millions of pounds to do nothing indefinitely I think that's nuts. It's strikes me as pretty unlikely they'll be legally required to continue to pay them full wages in return for nothing.

Legally Prem players' contracts are probably much more watertight than even other employment contracts. It would be easiest, if there's no football next season either, for clubs to try to reach a compromise agreement to terminate by mutual consent (if they really can't afford to keep the players and are prepared to sacrifice the transfer value). But if the player doesn't want to go... well, there's a whole argument there about what players are paid for. If they're available for work and turning up to train (if training is on) but there are no matches, I think the player has an excellent argument that they're fulfilling their side of the contract to the best of their ability. At that point, maybe you can argue redundancy, though. Or maybe the club goes into bankruptcy.

2 hours ago, ljkeane said:

Clubs probably don't want to rock the boat at the moment with players on longterm contracts but players whose contracts come to an end this summer would be a bit of a different situation.

Fair enough. Perhaps I should have said pay the players at some nominal level they think they can justify to avoid the trouble of actually dismissing them. I don't know what that would be, sick pay or maybe up to the level of government furlough subsidies, something like that.

Can't do that either. You can't furlough the players if there's football on, and you can't pay them less than their contracted wage just because you don't want to. It would be constructive dismissal - tribunals again.

[ljkeane]

8 minutes ago, mormont said:

Can't do that either. You can't furlough the players if there's football on, and you can't pay them less than their contracted wage just because you don't want to. It would be constructive dismissal - tribunals again.

Again, we're back to the point that you absolutely can pay them less than their contracted wage if they're not choosing to turn up to work.

9 minutes ago, mormont said:

But if the player doesn't want to go... well, there's a whole argument there about what players are paid for. If they're available for work and turning up to train (if training is on) but there are no matches, I think the player has an excellent argument that they're fulfilling their side of the contract to the best of their ability. At that point, maybe you can argue redundancy, though.

Sure, if players are available to train and turning up to do so you'd definitely have a very strong argument they're fulfilling their contracts. I don't think there'd be much argument the clubs would be obliged to pay them at least their base wages at that point. If they couldn't play the matches at that stage the clubs might have to think about redundancies (although they wouldn't like it considering players are as much assets as employees).

I think it's fairly unlikely clubs would be able to get enough people together to train regularly but not be able to at least put on behind closed doors matches though.

[BigFatCoward]

Is employment law really a football thing?  Though to be fair what else is their to talk about. 

Honest question for fans of everyone outside of the top 6, would you take Saudi money for a bit of success? I personally would rather not but apparently 97% of Newcastle fans would. 

[mormont]

1 hour ago, ljkeane said:

Again, we're back to the point that you absolutely can pay them less than their contracted wage if they're not choosing to turn up to work.

I'll keep this short in deference to BFC's fair point, but to sum up, to say this is 'absolutely' true seems a stretch. There are circumstances in which employers can refuse to pay at all and circumstances in which deductions can be made without consent but the only one that would realistically apply might be club disciplinary fines - which you could use as a short term measure to get a couple of weeks' wages back, I suppose, if you don't mind the PFA getting involved.

All in all I can't see any realistic circumstances in which players are going to be directly forced to either play or extend their contracts because all the options are a huge legal headache for the clubs. Which is why the clubs appear to be trying to generate a public expectation that the games will be played, to put pressure on the players.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

Honest question for fans of everyone outside of the top 6, would you take Saudi money for a bit if success? I personally would rather not but apparently 97% of Newcastle fans would. 

No fucking way. Ok, our fan scene would also tear any board that thinks of selling off club shares a new one. We are not even selling out name rights to our stadium. They had enough problems justifying an equipment deal with Under Amour. So, no way we would sell out to Saudis or other investors for that matter.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Anyway, small updates on things.

In the Netherland the clubs that got cheated out of the promotion (Cambuur and de Graafschap) are taking matters to court.

German Bundesliga and Corona.

Köln has the first three positives. Names were not disclosed. So it is unknown whether the three positives were players or part of the coaching, or medical staff. The persons in questions are quarantined at home now.

 

This is such a mess, and we are weeks away from supposed play. This is not gonna end well.

[Iskaral Pust]

Bloomberg.com (paywall, sorry) is reporting today that the PL clubs have agreed to finish the season by playing out the remaining games at empty neutral venues.  But they cite the Daily Mail for some of the specifics around timing, so I wouldn’t put much trust in those details.

[baxus]

9 hours ago, ljkeane said:

I think you're overstating how certain you are about that. There's definitely legal justification for not paying someone who refuses to come to work. The government very specifically hasn't said whether companies are obliged to pay someone who refuses to come into work because they want to maintain social distancing.

This is a very different scenario than what we originally talked about. We weren't talking about players who refused to play while their contracts are still in effect. We were talking about whether clubs can just not pay them for the last couple of months of their contracts if they refuse to sign extensions until this season is finished (in case it's not done by June 30th).

5 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Is employment law really a football thing?  Though to be fair what else is their to talk about. 

Honest question for fans of everyone outside of the top 6, would you take Saudi money for a bit of success? I personally would rather not but apparently 97% of Newcastle fans would. 

Hell, are Saudis that much worse than Mike Ashley? Or City's owners for that matter?

Joking aside, it's an interesting dilemma for sure. On one hand, I can understand Newcastle supporters wanting out of endless cycle of getting promoted and getting relegated with some seasons of relegation battles in between. On the other hand, Saudi Arabian royalty are probably not the kind of people you'd like to be around. Plus, with the level of investment in modern day game, especially in the Premiership, there's no guarantee for success, no matter the amount of money new owners splash on the club.

I'm glad I don't have to think about this that much.

[Consigliere]

1 hour ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Bloomberg.com (paywall, sorry) is reporting today that the PL clubs have agreed to finish the season by playing out the remaining games at empty neutral venues.  But they cite the Daily Mail for some of the specifics around timing, so I wouldn’t put much trust in those details.

Project Restart has been reported on by several outlets - The Times, Telegraph, BBC. The plan is to use 8-10 stadiums with no team getting a home game, around 3 weeks of training before getting underway and a window between June 8 and July 27 to complete the remaining fixtures and a start date of August 22 for next season

Today was the Premier League's shareholders meeting. 

 

[john]

7 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Honest question for fans of everyone outside of the top 6, would you take Saudi money for a bit of success? I personally would rather not but apparently 97% of Newcastle fans would. 

Can’t blame toon fans but it would leave a bit of a sour taste in the mouth. There are better Middle Eastern billionaires to be involved with.

[Jeor]

I can understand players being hesitant about returning to play. They've got families, it's a "contact" sport in a sense so if one player (or physio, etc) gets it there is the potential for an explosion in cases. Plus these are elite sportsmen who depend on 100% optimum health for their livelihood in short, disposable careers; if any particular class of people is going to be anal about taking care of their health etc you have to think they'd be up there.

On the other hand, it would be a tremendous boost to the nation's morale. If they do restart, the league would have to have contingencies on how to call the season (title winners, relegation, etc) at any point in time if the situation has to stop. It's not just that there might be an outbreak within the EPL, if the UK takes a turn for the worse in general they may have to call it off.

[mormont]

So apparently some EPL clubs are in favour of finishing the season, but only if the entire exercise is first rendered a complete waste of time.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/52517532

Quote

A growing number of Premier League clubs are open to playing the remaining fixtures at neutral venues but with the threat of relegation removed.

So the only results of actually playing out the season would be to decide the European places and to confirm what we all already know, that Liverpool won. Many games might as well not take place because there will be no consequences of the results. They'll be exhibition matches. But it's OK, because noted public health expert Steve Parish says it'll be safer than going to the supermarket. Like he's been to a supermarket in the last decade.

[Jeor]

2 hours ago, mormont said:

So apparently some EPL clubs are in favour of finishing the season, but only if the entire exercise is first rendered a complete waste of time.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/52517532

So the only results of actually playing out the season would be to decide the European places and to confirm what we all already know, that Liverpool won. Many games might as well not take place because there will be no consequences of the results. They'll be exhibition matches. But it's OK, because noted public health expert Steve Parish says it'll be safer than going to the supermarket. Like he's been to a supermarket in the last decade.

Sounds like another "capitalism without bankruptcy is Catholicism without hell" quote. I don't see why you'd discount relegation if you could get the games in. I know it's an extraordinary time but surely the point of playing the games is to get meaningful results, otherwise you might as well just call it now. As I said before, they are going to have to come up with a contingency for how to decide these things if there's a restart and then it has to stop again.

I wonder what the financial consequences are for the EPL clubs. If they don't play, do they lose the unfinished portion of TV money? If they play, do they get it all paid? A bunch of clubs must be nervously looking at their balance sheets.

[ljkeane]

1 minute ago, Jeor said:

Sounds like another "capitalism without bankruptcy is Catholicism without hell" quote. I don't see why you'd discount relegation if you could get the games in. I know it's an extraordinary time but surely the point of playing the games is to get meaningful results, otherwise you might as well just call it now.

UEFA have said leagues can not play out their seasons but there needs to a 'sporting basis' for the teams qualifying for Europe next season. I.e. you can't just pick teams, it needs to be in some way based on the games so far but beyond that you don't have to have champions or relegation.

With European qualification so tight there's a bunch of teams with something to gain by playing out the season plus the tv money issue as well. The spanner in the works is a number of teams have a lot to lose with the threat of relegation. Since UEFA is letting leagues cancel relegation I'd imagine they're pushing hard to remove that threat.