'Other Boro stuff'

[DanFromDownSouth 1,051]

9 hours ago, Changing Times said:

As I've already replied to NB4, what is it that Monk is supposed to have done wrong?  He didn't spend £6.5m on him, we did and I'd be staggered if that fee was negotiated by Monk.  In fact it seems clear from the article that it wasn't so that's one point.  The second point is in what way did they benefit from what we claim is an inflated fee?  If Featherstone couldn't get himself involved in the deal then we could have paid West Ham £100m and he still wouldn't have gotten a penny from it so what does it matter?  If there's some smoking gun somewhere that suggests Featherstone got a chunk of the money from West Ham then game on, let's get em.  But if he didn't then we just overpaid for a player and that's down to us.  I wholeheartedly agree with you on why Bauser or Gibson didn't step in and say we aren't paying that but then again we throwing money around left, right and centre.  I also agree with you about agents getting involved, I think it's wrong and in the end they are only in it for what they can get out of it.  I understand why you feel it's different but if you have a manager and his agent is finding players for your club to sign then that would appear to be a clear conflict of interest to me.

I think the argument is that Monk has divulged confidential information (Our transfer targets) to his agent, with the hopes that his agent can get in on the deal. In regards to the Fletcher deal there is an argument that Fletcher could and should have been brought for a lower fee as Monk knew from his time at Leeds that he could be brought for around half of what we paid, that is where I think the club are angling at Monk not acting with the best interests of the club. Like you have said unless there is clear evidence that Monk has done that in the Fletcher, Johnson and Shotton deals I don't think the matter will go any further. 

But the Christie deal seems to have a lot more evidence to point towards wrong doing on Monk and Featherstone's part. The "smoking gun" if you will is the fact that Featherstone was working on behalf of Derby and actively told Derby to hold out for a bigger fee, why? Because Monk told him about our intention to go after Christie (within 24 hours) after we found out our top 2 targets, arguably we would be more desperate for him to sign after missing out on other targets. So Featherstone used knowledge that was confidential and wasn't in the public domain in order to secure himself an extra slice of money (Hence the reference to insider trading).

Ultimately we as a club huge overspent that summer regardless of how you look at it and I'm astounded that Bauser and Gibson allowed certain deals to go through. Just seems that potentially some of that over spending can directly be attributed to Monk and Featherstone.

[estonpidge 336]

Gibson has a history of backing his managers, given the "smash the League" quote he couldn't really turn down Monks insistence on signing Fletcher, though it would be interesting to see what the Hammers have to say on the matter.

[Changing Times 3,157]

4 hours ago, Brunners said:

CT are you ignoring certain parts of this article just for fun or do you not really understand what you have read?

You claim to understand facts better than others and yet seem to be wilfully ignoring at least half of what this article is stating.

Ok, why don't you point out the bits you think I'm ignoring and I'll address them for you mate.

[Changing Times 3,157]

4 hours ago, Sarumite said:

CT, you have made one assumption on the Fletcher deal. That we negotiated!

If our first offer was £6.5m and West Ham accepted, that isn't a negotiation.

Monk knew that Leeds had a loan deal with a permanent deal agreed for £3m. He has a legal obligation under his contract to Boro to make them aware of this and that they were overpaying.

Fault also lies at the feet of our senior management team - surely negotiations should always start with... 'we're interested in X, is he available and how much?'... Then go proceed with negotiations if the valuation is a reasonable point to start such negotiations.

The agent seems to have been trying to get his fingers into a lot of pies financially and in my thinking even just the Cyrus Christie deal is bad enough. Agents are the scourge of the modern game!

 

I understand that mate but unless Monk actually told the club to offer that amount then I'm failing to see what he did wrong and even if he did do that we were still under no obligation to make the bid.  If there was some way in which Monk was benefiting from overpaying then I could see our point but he didn't so what would it matter to him what we were paying West Ham?  Maybe the price was higher for us from West Ham's point of view because they knew we had parachute money to spend and perhaps felt that we were more likely to overpay?  We were willing to pay a £2m loan fee for Hugill from the same club a year later and I doubt there's anyone who thinks that was anything but overpaying.  I agree with you about agents though and this particular one is clearly no different.

[Brunners 2,398]

10 minutes ago, Changing Times said:

Ok, why don't you point out the bits you think I'm ignoring and I'll address them for you mate.

Okay when I get home later I will do exactly that ? you seem to be ignoring the idea that monk kept disclosing our targets to his agent against the clubs wishes. 

Also you seem to have ignored that the thing about the fletcher transfer isnt how much we paid but that monk KNEW we could pay half of it and didn't tell the club for whatever reason. 

[Changing Times 3,157]

1 hour ago, DanFromDownSouth said:

I think the argument is that Monk has divulged confidential information (Our transfer targets) to his agent, with the hopes that his agent can get in on the deal. In regards to the Fletcher deal there is an argument that Fletcher could and should have been brought for a lower fee as Monk knew from his time at Leeds that he could be brought for around half of what we paid, that is where I think the club are angling at Monk not acting with the best interests of the club. Like you have said unless there is clear evidence that Monk has done that in the Fletcher, Johnson and Shotton deals I don't think the matter will go any further. 

But the Christie deal seems to have a lot more evidence to point towards wrong doing on Monk and Featherstone's part. The "smoking gun" if you will is the fact that Featherstone was working on behalf of Derby and actively told Derby to hold out for a bigger fee, why? Because Monk told him about our intention to go after Christie (within 24 hours) after we found out our top 2 targets, arguably we would be more desperate for him to sign after missing out on other targets. So Featherstone used knowledge that was confidential and wasn't in the public domain in order to secure himself an extra slice of money (Hence the reference to insider trading).

Ultimately we as a club huge overspent that summer regardless of how you look at it and I'm astounded that Bauser and Gibson allowed certain deals to go through. Just seems that potentially some of that over spending can directly be attributed to Monk and Featherstone.

Yeah that absolutely is the argument mate but if his agent didn't get in on the deals then what are we going to base our legal action on, if we end up taking any?  I would say lots of our players over the years should have been bought for a lower fee but I'm not sure how much of the blame for that we can put at a managers door.  In terms of the Fletcher deal, unless he told the club to bid a lot higher than it's a tough one to see how he's responsible?  Player valuations change all the time and the price for a player at one point in time could be very different further down the line and could be different depending on who is making the offer.  If he said I'd like this player and we went off and made a stupid bid then that's on us.

I agree about the Christie deal but have some reservations about a few things.  Derby must have known he was Monk's agent and that we were interested in signing him so logically wouldn't you think they could see the potential to get more money out of us because of this?  Similarly I just don't understand the process by which he can be named as the agent acting for Derby but we don't know about it until the deal is essentially done but that could be an issue of process rather than anything else.  I think that deal clearly has some questions about it though as I've said.

[Brunners 2,398]

I see above you have briefly touched on the fletcher thing, but I still don't think you are really understanding what the club are mad about.

He had a clause in his contract that basically amounted to don't do bad by the club (I'm at work so don't have the exact quote up) and not disclosing the fact he had a 3m deal lined up 6 months earlier and insisting we buy the player (which again the article states he insisted pretty hard) meant we overpaid. Has he benefitted directly from that? No apparently not, but not for lack of trying. But he still broke that clause and he seems to have repeatedly broken it.

[Changing Times 3,157]

9 minutes ago, Brunners said:

Okay when I get home later I will do exactly that ? you seem to be ignoring the idea that monk kept disclosing our targets to his agent against the clubs wishes. 

Also you seem to have ignored that the thing about the fletcher transfer isnt how much we paid but that monk KNEW we could pay half of it and didn't tell the club for whatever reason. 

No I haven't ignored that.  In one of my posts I actually say this is the issue.  My point is that whatever Monk did, if his agent couldn't get involved and therefore he and Monk couldn't benefit from it then what are we going to argue exactly?  That they tried to diddle us but couldn't?  

Regarding the Fletcher transfer, I've already addressed that as well.  Just because a player was available at a price to one club at one point in time that doesn't mean he is available for the same price to another club at another point in time.  If Monk simply told the club that he'd like that particular player and we went in with a stupid bid then that's on us.  By the way, it is how much we paid that we have an issue with because the only possible reason for us to pursue legal action against Monk and his agent, if we do that and I don't think we will, is in order to get some form of financial recompense.  We overpaid for Assombalonga as well but we're ok with that it would seem because Monk's agent didn't try to involve himself I guess.  The end result is still the same though that we spent too much on a player.

[Brunners 2,398]

7 minutes ago, Changing Times said:

No I haven't ignored that.  In one of my posts I actually say this is the issue.  My point is that whatever Monk did, if his agent couldn't get involved and therefore he and Monk couldn't benefit from it then what are we going to argue exactly?  That they tried to diddle us but couldn't?  

Regarding the Fletcher transfer, I've already addressed that as well.  Just because a player was available at a price to one club at one point in time that doesn't mean he is available for the same price to another club at another point in time.  If Monk simply told the club that he'd like that particular player and we went in with a stupid bid then that's on us.  By the way, it is how much we paid that we have an issue with because the only possible reason for us to pursue legal action against Monk and his agent, if we do that and I don't think we will, is in order to get some form of financial recompense.  We overpaid for Assombalonga as well but we're ok with that it would seem because Monk's agent didn't try to involve himself I guess.  The end result is still the same though that we spent too much on a player.

See my above post. You're still missing the point.

[Changing Times 3,157]

6 minutes ago, Brunners said:

I see above you have briefly touched on the fletcher thing, but I still don't think you are really understanding what the club are mad about.

He had a clause in his contract that basically amounted to don't do bad by the club (I'm at work so don't have the exact quote up) and not disclosing the fact he had a 3m deal lined up 6 months earlier and insisting we buy the player (which again the article states he insisted pretty hard) meant we overpaid. Has he benefitted directly from that? No apparently not, but not for lack of trying. But he still broke that clause and he seems to have repeatedly broken it.

I fully understand it mate honestly.

Monk didn't have a £3m deal lined up 6 months earlier.  Leeds United apparently had a £3m deal lined up in the same way that Monk didn't have a £6.5m deal lined up for Fletcher with us nor a £15m deal lined up for Assombalonga.

This clause of don't do bad by the club as you put it will be in every contract of that nature.  Unless Monk was actually in the negotiations for the players then it will be extremely difficult for us to prove that he acted in bad faith, which is why I don't think this will go any further than us sending a letter (a year ago it seems).  The problem with clauses like that from my point of view is how do we as a club decided what we feel is ok acting in bad faith and not ok acting in bad faith.  It seems clear that Pulis alienated or tried to alienate certain players at the club.  Is that acting in the club's best interests because I don't think it is?  If it turns out that Pulis received a percentage of transfer revenues and he was actively looking to get rid of certain players then why aren't we up in arms about that?  To put it in another way, is there anyone on here who believes that playing Hugill ahead of Assombalonga was acting in the best interests of the club?  I don't think it is and with the supposed transfer related information it certainly makes a lot more sense to me now.  But the club are apparently fine with that. 

I think Monk and his agent tried it on didn't achieve anything but Gibson is *** off about it and probably about a few other things that have nothing to do with Monk.  I don't think that as it stands we have much of a case against them, which is probably why a year has passed with nothing happening.  If we can claw some money back then great.  If we can prove that Monk and the agent are dodgy and get them banned from football then great.  However, I think it's been leaked to the media (by us) in order to try and embarrass Monk and the agent because we know that legal action will go nowhere.  All of that may be completely and utterly wrong of course, that's just my take on it ?

[DanFromDownSouth 1,051]

29 minutes ago, Changing Times said:

Yeah that absolutely is the argument mate but if his agent didn't get in on the deals then what are we going to base our legal action on, if we end up taking any?

Without seeing or knowing the full details I imagine we would pursue the breaches of contract and confidentiality aspect in terms of legal proceedings. You are right for all the deals bar Christie (By the sounds of it) the agent tried to get involved in the deal but couldn't, that shouldn't however excuse any wrong doing as they still had intent on gaining financially from Monk's breaches in confidentiality and contract.
 

[Brunners 2,398]

? Leeds and monk had a loan with a 3m buy clause in it ready to go with west ham only for monk to nix it last minute and sign his agents client mo Barrow instead.

[Changing Times 3,157]

3 minutes ago, DanFromDownSouth said:

Without seeing or knowing the full details I imagine we would pursue the breaches of contract and confidentiality aspect in terms of legal proceedings. You are right for all the deals bar Christie (By the sounds of it) the agent tried to get involved in the deal but couldn't, that shouldn't however excuse any wrong doing as they still had intent on gaining financially from Monk's breaches in confidentiality and contract.
 

Yes I know that's what we'd pursue but in order to get financial recompense we'd have to show how they actually cost us money and that is going to be difficult if the agent couldn't actually get involved in the deals.  That's the point I'm making.  We would have to prove definitively that the only reason Monk wanted us to sign those players is because they were trying to make some money between the pair of them.  I don't think that will be possible based on the information in that article.

[Borodane 1,571]

It was still the club that handled the negotiations and they were obviously pretty bad at that. That's on the club. I don't think we will be getting any money out of it. But it still doesn't change the fact that Monk and his agent is running a shady scheme, when it's something the club explicitly told Monk not to do. In the end it apparently was a contributing factor to him losing his job and subsequently also losing his job at Birmingham.

[Duvel 1,090]

Whoever decided that we should bid 7m for Fletcher should be banned from football. It was pretty obvious after watching Fletcher a handful of times that we'd massively overpaid for him.