Club Ownership | INEOS responsible for the football side

[Insanity]

Hard to see us having a very good window given that a lot of the top positions are still vacant. The CEO starts mid-July, the Dof is in a battle with the Saudis and there is no head of recruitment. The only person in place is the technical director, who has only managed academies so far in his career. Given the situation, I rather not buy anyone than go on a shopping spree based on the list provided by ETH's agency. Let's work on getting the squad fit and have a good preseason. Give Gore, Collyer, Amass etc an opportunity. ETH got 3rd in his first season and went on to spend another 200m after that. It should be piece of cake for him to achieve 3rd or better again even with just one or two signings this window.

INEOS get a pass from me for now, but it's freaking frustrating.

 

[Thom Merrilin]

A few problems with your question:

First, it is not "us" (we) who are paying the fee -- INEOS would pay the fee, and as far as I know the fee would not undermine the ability of INEOS to pay the transfer fees necessary to bring in new players (the transfer budget allotted to United per FFP rules). Second, the role Ashworth would serve would not be a mere backroom staff. Lastly, who the fukk cares whether the fee blows the others out of the water?

If in the end INEOS decide Ashworth is not worth, so it be it. But what I would not see happen is that we bring in second class executives -- as we have done since the beginning of the Glazer era -- to run the club. I have no idea if Ashworth would be a transformational executive, but if we accept that he is a payment to Newcastle of 25m is money well spent.

I'm pretty sure it'd be Manchester United paying the fee, not INEOS. Also, I'm pretty sure that fee counts towards FFP or PSR or both and couldn't be amortized like a player transfer.

 

[Acrobat7]

If they get too much involved they act against the interests of their current employers and risk being taken to court for a breach of their existing contracts. So I'm sure they are less involved than you think and everybody here would like.

I think it is also smart from Newcastle to hold out for an unrealistic fee. United seems fixated on him so why not block them from having a DoF and thereby weakening them if it only costs you 3m or whatever his wages are.

 

[RedRocket9908]

I think it is also smart from Newcastle to hold out for an unrealistic fee. United seems fixated on him so why not block them from having a DoF and thereby weakening them if it only costs you 3m or whatever his wages are.

Its not smart from us to be still chasing him after almost 5 months when Newcastle have made it clear they not willing to do business with us unless we pay a ludicrus price and know that by holding us up they are hampering our summer transfer business and our ability to compete with them, we should have walked away by now and switched to other targets.

 

[DJ_21]

They obviously don’t have the best relationship with ETH. Things have got of to a bad start. Especially ETH coming out in public and saying they disturbed his holiday. That wouldn’t have gone down to well with a man that doesn’t like leaks from anywhere.

 

[Vidooq]

They obviously don’t have the best relationship with ETH. Things have got of to a bad start. Especially ETH coming out in public and saying they disturbed his holiday. That wouldn’t have gone down to well with a man that doesn’t like leaks from anywhere.

There wasn't a vile intention in that, and Ten Hag said it in a polite way, like they were so eager to tell me I was staying, that they interrupted my holiday. No malice in that. But yeah, going around publicly, interviewing other candidates for his job, I doubt it felt good for him. Now he has the upper hand in the new contract negotiations.

 

[Crimson King]

I think it is also smart from Newcastle to hold out for an unrealistic fee. United seems fixated on him so why not block them from having a DoF and thereby weakening them if it only costs you 3m or whatever his wages are.

I mean sure you could look at it that way, but apparently they're finding it hard to replace him as well. Probably not all down to how this is playing out, but I'm sure that's part of the reason.

I also don't think it's holding the club back as much as people are saying anyway. At this point they might as well appoint everyone else, with Ashworth's blessing on the sly, then just wait for his gardening leave to finish.

 

[Tango80]

I think it is also smart from Newcastle to hold out for an unrealistic fee. United seems fixated on him so why not block them from having a DoF and thereby weakening them if it only costs you 3m or whatever his wages are.

Can they also get another DoF though while Ashworth is still employed there?

 

[Judas]

They obviously don’t have the best relationship with ETH. Things have got of to a bad start. Especially ETH coming out in public and saying they disturbed his holiday. That wouldn’t have gone down to well with a man that doesn’t like leaks from anywhere.

Do you misunderstand tongue in cheek comments this badly in real life too? Or is this entire post tongue in cheek itself?

 

[DJ_21]

Do you misunderstand tongue in cheek comments this badly in real life too? Or is this entire post tongue in cheek itself?

Look at it how you want. ETH wouldn’t have been happy they was interviewing other managers hence the reason he said they’d never do that in Netherlands. And Ratcliffe won’t be happy ETH has said it in public as no matter which way he said it, it won’t look good for them.

 

[Acrobat7]

Can they also get another DoF though while Ashworth is still employed there?

Of course. Why wouldn’t they? He is on garden leave so they need to fill the vacancy.

 

[lex talionis]

I'm pretty sure it'd be Manchester United paying the fee, not INEOS. Also, I'm pretty sure that fee counts towards FFP or PSR or both and couldn't be amortized like a player transfer.

Fees paid to executives and fix leaky roofs and improve Carrington, and to pay lawyers and accountants, do not come out of the player transfer budget under the regulation of FFP.

 

[MDFC Manager]

Fees paid to executives and fix leaky roofs and improve Carrington, and to pay lawyers and accountants, do not come out of the player transfer budget under the regulation of FFP.

Fair point, though it's still cash going/gone out and i think the last financial reports showed we don't have much of it

 

[lex talionis]

Fair point, though it's still cash going/gone out and i think the last financial reports showed we don't have much of it

True, but between the Glazers and Ratcliffe I’m sure they can find 25m to pay Newcastle’s ransom demand.

Whether Ashwurth is worth it I have no idea, but the idea that he will just tend to his garden for a year until he goes to work for us is bizarre. We’ve got a lot to do to repair the damage Woodward and Murtough inflicted under the neglectful ownership of the Glazers.

 

[MDFC Manager]

True, but between the Glazers and Ratcliffe I’m sure they can find 25m to pay Newcastle’s ransom demand.

Whether Ashwurth is worth it I have no idea, but the idea that he will just tend to his garden for a year until he goes to work for us is bizarre. We’ve got a lot to do to repair the damage Woodward and Murtough inflicted under the neglectful ownership of the Glazers.

Agreed mate.

 

[Big Ben Foster]

True, but between the Glazers and Ratcliffe I’m sure they can find 25m to pay Newcastle’s ransom demand.

Whether Ashwurth is worth it I have no idea, but the idea that he will just tend to his garden for a year until he goes to work for us is bizarre. We’ve got a lot to do to repair the damage Woodward and Murtough inflicted under the neglectful ownership of the Glazers.

Problem is that Ratcliffe / Trawlers has no incentive to put any more of his money into the club unless it has a dilutive effect on the other owners' stakes.

 

[Partridge]

Well that's good. A company that is established and has cash to pay us.

Trust me, Qualcomm will never run out of money. They are everywhere.

 

[Partridge]

People have apparently absolved Ten Hag of any accountability. All it took was the FA Cup and the season-ending so he could feck things up further.

He hasn't been absolved. Was his fault, the players fault. But, as Jim has said, the environment wasn't set up for any of the managers to succeed and he wasn't wrong. Ten hag gets a chance to succeed in a better environment. Let's move on..

 

[George The Best]

True, but between the Glazers and Ratcliffe I’m sure they can find 25m to pay Newcastle’s ransom demand.

Whether Ashwurth is worth it I have no idea, but the idea that he will just tend to his garden for a year until he goes to work for us is bizarre. We’ve got a lot to do to repair the damage Woodward and Murtough inflicted under the neglectful ownership of the Glazers.

Nobody is paying £25m for a DoF. That is outrageous and needs to be tested by arbitration or the courts - difficult to see how Newcastle could defend their position. They are certainly not paying him £25m whilst on gardening leave. They might try to argue that £25m is the value of his contract over X years, bit unlikely imo. but fact is he has resigned so they can only claim what they would pay him for his notice period. If they fired him would they be paying him £25m in compensation - no way!

 

[Devil_forever]

Nobody is paying £25m for a DoF. That is outrageous and needs to be tested by arbitration or the courts - difficult to see how Newcastle could defend their position. They are certainly not paying him £25m whilst on gardening leave. They might try to argue that £25m is the value of his contract over X years, bit unlikely imo. but fact is he has resigned so they can only claim what they would pay him for his notice period. If they fired him would they be paying him £25m in compensation - no way!

It is but when clubs spunk £400m up the wall on shit transfers, a DoF is worth his weight in gold.

 

[The Mitcher]

Its not smart from us to be still chasing him after almost 5 months when Newcastle have made it clear they not willing to do business with us unless we pay a ludicrus price and know that by holding us up they are hampering our summer transfer business and our ability to compete with them, we should have walked away by now and switched to other targets.

I said we were foolish to put all our eggs in the Ashworth basket and got slated. Here we are and now it's an acceptable take .

 

[The Mitcher]

He hasn't been absolved. Was his fault, the players fault. But, as Jim has said, the environment wasn't set up for any of the managers to succeed and he wasn't wrong. Ten hag gets a chance to succeed in a better environment. Let's move on..

Massive copium from Jim because he failed to sell this "project" to managers like Tuchel.

 

[Judas]

Massive copium from Jim because he failed to sell this "project" to managers like Tuchel.

How'd you decide thats what happened?

 

[lex talionis]

Nobody is paying £25m for a DoF. That is outrageous and needs to be tested by arbitration or the courts - difficult to see how Newcastle could defend their position. They are certainly not paying him £25m whilst on gardening leave. They might try to argue that £25m is the value of his contract over X years, bit unlikely imo. but fact is he has resigned so they can only claim what they would pay him for his notice period. If they fired him would they be paying him £25m in compensation - no way!

I seriously doubt the courts would intervene in a contract negotiation.

It really comes down to how much Dan Ashworth is, well, worth to United. I have no idea and to be honest I had never heard of him before all this. But if his business acumen is such that he can sell Sancho for say 10m more than the current management team can, and can negotiate down fees for the likes of Branthwaite and whoever else, maybe the 25m pays for itself in the first year alone.

 

[simonhch]

I suspect Newcastle’s resolve will soften after the transfer window closes. But it’s a pyrrhic victory for them. They have no DoF either. It’s all rather silly. If he joins in 3, 6 or 9 months we’ll be fine until then, and we’ll have set an important precedent. Assuming we don’t overpay in the transfer market, which we appear determined not to do. The real test will be as the window needs closing and if we haven’t signed our targets, will panic set in? I doubt it, from what I’ve seen so far. Ineos regime looks patient and methodical, so I’m not too worried.

Tons of nervous nelly, drama queens commentating from their expert armchairs as usual.

 

[Rook]

I seriously doubt the courts would intervene in a contract negotiation.

It really comes down to how much Dan Ashworth to United. I have no idea and to be honest I had never heard of him before all this. But if his business acumen is such that he can sell Sancho for say 10m more than the current management team can, and can negotiate down fees for the likes of Branthwaite and whoever else, maybe the 25m pays for itself in the first year alone.

If we pay 25m for a DoF we are not negotiating anything down in the near future.

 

[MadDogg]

It really comes down to how much Dan Ashworth is, well, worth to United. I have no idea and to be honest I had never heard of him before all this. But if his business acumen is such that he can sell Sancho for say 10m more than the current management team can, and can negotiate down fees for the likes of Branthwaite and whoever else, maybe the 25m pays for itself in the first year alone.

Except paying a huge over-the-top fee to get him in will probably do the exact opposite, showing everybody that nothing has changed and that the club will continue throwing around big money in desperation as long as the other club holds out. It instantly destroys the narrative that the new structure is going to be more financially-sensible and be stronger in negotiations.

Taking a strong stance now, even if it hurts a bit in the short-term, only strengthens our bargaining power in the future.

 

[GoldanoGraham]

Ashworth will be working from home in his conservatory - no doubts about that.

His relationship with Newcastle is well and truely broken. While he is not allowed to take payment or work for anyone else there are lots of ways he can work indirectly.

He should be compiling a monster list of players with all this time to watch football everywhere!

 

[Pexbo]

Ashworth will be working from home in his conservatory - no doubts about that.

His relationship with Newcastle is well and truely broken. While he is not allowed to take payment or work for anyone else there are lots of ways he can work indirectly.

He should be compiling a monster list of players with all this time to watch football everywhere!

He will be consulted on the odd decision I’m sure but the idea that he is working away from home right now is absolute nonsense. A big part of what his job will entail will be communicating with agents, other clubs and other third parties and there’s no way he’s doing that while on gardening leave with Newcastle.

Also, in order to do his job he will need to be given equipment - mobile and laptop along with credentials to access all our internal systems and again, no way that’s all getting signed off before he has a contract. There’s going to be a tonne of sensitive data he will need to do his job properly which comes with NDAs plus there will be insurance against data leaks and we’re not giving that level of access to a non-employee.

Much as everyone seems to think he’s just de facto working for us despite all the above and the fact it would be totally illegal as he’s still employed and paid by Newcastle he most definitely is not.

 

[croadyman]

Except paying a huge over-the-top fee to get him in will probably do the exact opposite, showing everybody that nothing has changed and that the club will continue throwing around big money in desperation as long as the other club holds out. It instantly destroys the narrative that the new structure is going to be more financially-sensible and be stronger in negotiations.

Taking a strong stance now, even if it hurts a bit in the short-term, only strengthens our bargaining power in the future.

Yeah INEOS taking a stand now will hopefully benefit us in the long term

 

[Partridge]

Massive copium from Jim because he failed to sell this "project" to managers like Tuchel.

Tuchel, the man who spits his dummy out if he doesn't get what he demands? I wonder where we have seen that before...hmm..

 

[Garethw]

Ashworth will be working from home in his conservatory - no doubts about that.

His relationship with Newcastle is well and truely broken. While he is not allowed to take payment or work for anyone else there are lots of ways he can work indirectly.

He should be compiling a monster list of players with all this time to watch football everywhere!

But the trouble is he isn’t going to do any of that until he signs the contract with us. I don’t blame him really as we could still walk away at any moment.

 

[The Mitcher]

How'd you decide thats what happened?

Because it the club was open about getting a new manager, Tuchel was open to joining us. We know they met and somehow Tuchel decided it wasn't worth it. Probably because Jim has nothing to sell.

 

[lex talionis]

If we pay 25m for a DoF we are not negotiating anything down in the near future.

That's quite a bold categorical statement. What's your reasoning behind that?

As I mentioned before, I have no idea whether Dan is a DoF genius. But if he is -- for the sake of argument let us assume he is a head and shoulders better at this job than anyone else on earth we could realistically bring in -- we would be daft to run the club without a DoF for an entire season while the club is desperately trying to dig itself out of the hole that Woodward and Murtaugh dug us into.

It may well be that INEOS decide that it's worth another lost season -- lost in the sense that we are not going to making major squad moves without Dan or else what's the point of Dan in the first place -- in order to wait for Dan. It's their club and they can do as they wish, but I suspect most of us here are not interested in another lost season to wait for the rebuild that would begin in the 25/26 season and take in all likelihood 2-3 seasons to complete. By then we're realistically looking at the 27/28 season as the first season where we can realistically challenge for the PL trophy and I believe I speak for most here that that would be a very disappointing outcome only because INEOS and the Glazers were more interested in pocketing the 25m than spending it now on the man whom they argue will lead us back to the promised land.

Also, there's no guarantee that Dan will sit in his garden the entire time waiting to join United.

 

[lex talionis]

He will be consulted on the odd decision I’m sure but the idea that he is working away from home right now is absolute nonsense. A big part of what his job will entail will be communicating with agents, other clubs and other third parties and there’s no way he’s doing that while on gardening leave with Newcastle.

Also, in order to do his job he will need to be given equipment - mobile and laptop along with credentials to access all our internal systems and again, no way that’s all getting signed off before he has a contract. There’s going to be a tonne of sensitive data he will need to do his job properly which comes with NDAs plus there will be insurance against data leaks and we’re not giving that level of access to a non-employee.

Much as everyone seems to think he’s just de facto working for us despite all the above and the fact it would be totally illegal as he’s still employed and paid by Newcastle he most definitely is not.

Agreed. The notion that Dan could secretly work for United while he's under contract, with a noncompete clause, with Newcastle, is pure fantasy.

 

[RedRocket9908]

Newcastle are treating Dan Ashworth disgracefully by holding him to ransom for an extortionate fee, I think we should call their bluff by releaseing a statement saying we've decided to withdraw our interest and focus on other targets to see how Newcastle react to the realisation that they are stuck paying disgruntled employer a large wage for staying home and tending to his garden.

 

[Dion]

If they get too much involved they act against the interests of their current employers and risk being taken to court for a breach of their existing contracts. So I'm sure they are less involved than you think and everybody here would like.

Both Berrada and Ashworth have been reported in the Athletic as being consulted on the management changes. People don't actually get taken to court for breaking gardening leave until they leave a paper trail via accessing their old employers systems etc.

https://theathletic.com/5302307/2024/02/27/manchester-united-omar-berrada-ceo-city/

However, The Athletic has learned that the executive has already met and spoken with a number of United’s executive leadership team since his appointment to gain a greater understanding of the club’s processes. Berrada has also offered a viewpoint on potential hires, with United seeking to revamp the club’s operations under Sir Jim Ratcliffe.

 

[Dion]

He will be consulted on the odd decision I’m sure but the idea that he is working away from home right now is absolute nonsense. A big part of what his job will entail will be communicating with agents, other clubs and other third parties and there’s no way he’s doing that while on gardening leave with Newcastle.

Also, in order to do his job he will need to be given equipment - mobile and laptop along with credentials to access all our internal systems and again, no way that’s all getting signed off before he has a contract. There’s going to be a tonne of sensitive data he will need to do his job properly which comes with NDAs plus there will be insurance against data leaks and we’re not giving that level of access to a non-employee.

Much as everyone seems to think he’s just de facto working for us despite all the above and the fact it would be totally illegal as he’s still employed and paid by Newcastle he most definitely is not.

Ashworth owns his own personal mobile phone. The players United are interested in aren't ones you need a deep data dive at hand to offer opinions on. United have an entire data team that can highlight players (and why they're being highlighted), Ashworth and Berrada can then have their influence. United have people who can speak to agents already.

I'm sure he'll be limited in what he can do in certain ways, but his job as well as Berrada is big picture strategy stuff. He's not a scout.

 

[Dion]

He should be compiling a monster list of players with all this time to watch football everywhere!

That's not Ashworth's job. Scouts and analytics do the granular stuff like compiling player lists.

Ashworth's job is to guide strategy, things like the age profile of the squad, the type of player to target, the manager to coach them, the direction of the academy etc.

 

[Redivy]

He will be consulted on the odd decision I’m sure but the idea that he is working away from home right now is absolute nonsense. A big part of what his job will entail will be communicating with agents, other clubs and other third parties and there’s no way he’s doing that while on gardening leave with Newcastle.

Also, in order to do his job he will need to be given equipment - mobile and laptop along with credentials to access all our internal systems and again, no way that’s all getting signed off before he has a contract. There’s going to be a tonne of sensitive data he will need to do his job properly which comes with NDAs plus there will be insurance against data leaks and we’re not giving that level of access to a non-employee.

Much as everyone seems to think he’s just de facto working for us despite all the above and the fact it would be totally illegal as he’s still employed and paid by Newcastle he most definitely is not.

Thats just one part of his job. He would be gaining an understanding on our playing staff, medical department, scouting department and academy. These are all the things he will oversee once he is officially in the job.

He might not be able to speak to agents, but he will be able to communicate internally on our systems and processes.