(Contributed by fellow mordant.org outcast L Martillo)
Anyone who has ever been involved in financial negotiations will know that you don’t start with your bottom line; a reasonable rule of thumb says "double it and then negotiate". So to agree to pay Sheffield United about half of the ridiculously inflated figure they asked for, seems to me to be tantamount to wandering down to the village green and restraining ourselves in the stocks, the medieval throne of public humiliation. Assaulted with a barrage of rotten tomatoes, or compensation claims as we call them these days, there seems little leeway to say anything other than, "It’s a fair cop – we’re guilty – punish us."
Had we negotiated an out of court settlement early on in this dispute, it is unlikely that the Premier League would have ordered a further enquiry and the whole business, though costly, would have been forgotten by now. If we had argued our corner at the hearing convened to adjudicate on compensation, we would probably have been no more financially inconvenienced than we have been but would at least still have been able to say the decision was unjust and we had been unfairly treated.
But what happens now? Sitting there like the aftermath of a comic relief red nose day fundraiser, I fear we may have left ourselves open to be hit with the cruelest punishment of all; a hefty points deduction that would be a bitter pillory to swallow.
"Remove our boots and beat our naked soles" in the words of Bastinado.
9 comments:
Would that be Clifford Stanley Bastinado, renowned hero of Arsenal and Argentina. Boy, that lad could play.
I remember thinking at the time that one side cannot tear up an agreement without there being consequences. If I tear up my mortgage agreement the mortgage company comes and repossesses my home If the powers that be had asked for confirmation in writing from the other party in the agreement, Joorabchain, that the agreement had been torn up then the whole business would have stopped there. Tevez may not have played again and we may have been relegated, but at least our good name wouldn't have been dragged through the mud
The trouble is we didn't have much choice did we? If we hadnt played the boy for those three games we were gone man. 30 million worse off to boot. As long as we pay up less than that in total we're still the winners, we're still in the prem.
Bastinado is punishment by beating of the soles of the feat with a stick - not some obscure Spanish writer! It is from the spanish though; bastonada from baston meaning baton.
Good point Ironside but you've just appeared as the star witness for the other side! Lord Justice NoNothing was right, it WAS Tevez what did it!
OED thank you! I thought it was a writer and adapted L Matillo's article accordingly! No Spanish I'm afraid!
Our mummy told us never to talk to strange men and if Terence Brown's mummy had told him the same thing we wouldn't be in this mess now.
You know this whole business has gone toooo far when NewsNow carries a headline that reads "Cottagers to enter the Ring" Well honestly.... I ask you!
LOL Iron Hoof! Innuendo, Innuendo its in your end, oh!
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