Compensation re Cisse

October 6, 2006

Newcastle United's demand for £20m in compensation from the FA over the injury to Michael Owen is set to receive the influential support of David Dein.

The Arsenal vice-chairman was appointed President of the G14 group this week and immediately indicated that he would give the Toon's compensation claim his full backing as part of the heavyweight clubs' ongoing campaign against the inconvenience of international football.

"We have got the Michael Owen issue where he has been injured in the World Cup and could be out for a whole year," Dein said. "In our case, we had Philippe Senderos injured in the World Cup and we haven't seen him play for Arsenal this season and we are already in October. The G14 will back Newcastle and support them and I hope they would support Arsenal if we decided to do something over Senderos. Why shouldn't we? In what other industry would you allow your employees to go to someone else and then be off for a length of time because effectively they were on secondment to someone else?"

Talks between Newcastle and the FA are already underway, with the Toon indicating that they would have no compunction in taking their case to the High Court if necessary.

Their claim for £20m compensation will centre around the financial cost of losing Owen, injured on England duty during the World Cup, for a minimum period of eight months.

Although the FA's insurers are willing to pay half of Owen's £103,000-a-week wages for a year, the Toon also want to be compensated for the deprecation in Owen's value due to the long-term implications of such a serious knee injury, and the cost of buying a replacement. They are likely to argue that, had Owen been available, they would not have bought Obafemi Martins for £10m.

Surely we can argue the same over Cisse as he broke his leg playing for France. Had he not we could have sold him on this year, but we had to buy Bellamy so surely we could ask for his transfer back, also I bet that even though he on loan at Marseille we are still paying some if not all his wages.

If Newcastle get compensation this will set a dangerous precedent in terms of international football.

flash · October 6, 2006

This post is not viewable to guests.

You can sign in to your account at the login page here