How do you feel about the 3.7 million the court ruled he must pay Palace? Are you sympathetic towards him at all, or do you think he has got his just desserts at long last?
As a football manager, TP was good for Gills - and has had a fair amount of success on the field with all the clubs he's managed. I don't know him, personally, to make judgement about his character - and it wouldn't be right to speculate. As a businessman, I would expect him to try to achieve the maximum return possible for his efforts. The bottom line is that, at Palace, Pulis was just another employee - with terms & conditions to a contract. He negotiated a bonus, ( for keeping Palace in the EPL ), - but didn't keep one part of the 'qualifying' conditions - i.e to stay with the Club until the end of August. Palace were technically within their rights to claim that Pulis was, (therefore), not entitled to his money ---- although a different viewpoint might be that Palace are being ungrateful - when Pulis had achieved EPL safety - worth MANY £Millions ! - and to demand the return of 'mere change' is embarrassing themselves--------- but if we're sticking to the exact terms of the conditions of the payment to Pulis, then he's got to pay it back. The story reminds me of a job I had many years ago. At the start of a 3 week long period of holiday, I decided that I was not going back - and had lined up another job at the end of my holiday period. I was compelled to give one week 'notice' to my employer - so at the beginning of week three of my holiday period, I handed in my notice to my boss. This enabled me to qualify for payment for the last two weeks of my holiday -- otherwise I wouldn't have received that money if I had handed in my notice at the start of my holiday. Tony Pulis needed to have remembered the timescale of the terms of his contract at Palace - I'm sure that diaries don't cost £3.7 Million ( or perhaps his one does !)
I see it as him trying it on, he asked to get the bonus a few weeks early and once paid he left, he knew exactly what he was doing. He left us under a cloud, he left Bournemouth amid dodgy dealings, these are just the examples that went to court and we got to hear about.
