The 30th June is just a contractual thing. He isn't REALLY manager. He can't talk to anyone, but things are done anyway. I am sure if he wanted something to sorted it would be but I think no-one is interested.
SBM FFC4L is right. Even if Hughes is in charge for our first Europa tie, he won't actually be in charge. He probably isn't even taking training at the moment.
I know he isn't going to be Manager for the game but just to muck him around, the way it seems that he has done to Fulham.
It will be great if we appoint someone quickly while Hughes and his dodgy agent have to sit and twiddle their thumbs. I wonder if he ever scored any own goals in his playing career....?
Personally, I don't care about making Hughes and his staff suffer. We should do what's best for Fulham. If that means holding the staff to their contracts, great. If that means cutting some or all of them loose sooner rather than later, great. Making Hughes serve out his notice, if it doesn't achieve anything for us, is something we're entitled to do, but what do we gain by it?
Being serious, I believe that the Hughes is now on "gardening leave" ie he is still employed by the club but not actually working for it. I assume the break clause in his contract obliged him to serve one month's notice which is what he has done. The club is therefore obliged to pay him for that month. In theory the parties could have negotiated an earlier leaving date and an earlier termination of payment but it either suited both sides to keep to the original deal or it suited one of them (although as Captain says, I can't really see why). As for Hughes' assistants they have a choice to make: serve notice themselves as any employee can under any (non-fixed term) contract and walk away with no compensation or wait to be dismissed and negotiate a settlement. I assume they'll go of their accord although if Hughes isn't off to a new club maybe they'll wait to be paid off.
I listened to Kia Joorabchian this morning trying come across all nice and showing that Mark Hughes has acted honourably, then using all his PR skills to avoid being clear on the real questions. MH used Fulham as a stepping stone - Honourably as indicated by the likes of Kia (remember he brought Tevez to West Ham on a strange contract), Sepp etc evidently has a different meaning than it does to the rest of us. Football would be better off without them.
I'm just pleased that the majority of the media has taken our side over this saga and has branded Hughes as 'foolish' for leaving us. Then again, we have become the media's little darlings after our Europa run.
i think you guys are being a bit harsh on sparky. yes, by all means you have every right to be pee'd off at how he quit the job without even having a new one lined up, but a part of me thinks that maybe behind all this is disappointment that he's gone? its clear that from day one, he didnt come to stick around for 5 years, but despite this, did a good job, signed some decent players for you, and has decided that he's got no chance of improving on an impressive 8th place. personally, i dont think many of you will be thinking this time next year that sparky is a arse hole and i'm glad he's gone. yes he's not very likeable, but he got you results. if you want a nicey nicey manager (who wont resign after a year) who could easily get fulham back down in the bottom 3 where they were before hodgson performed miracles, then theres plenty of those around.
A bit of an exaggeration there Swamp. He signed Dembele, good, but Salcido? You'd have to see him play to know what we mean. "fulham back down in the bottom 3 where they were before hodgson performed miracles" In fact Fulham were in the bottom 3 because we had a complete dork of a manager whose name I won't use but we'll call thunderbirds13. Before that, although we had flirted with relegation, Coleman & Tigana had made us a mid-table team. Hughes hasn't achieved that much with us.
I don't believe it was Hughes who got the results. The players did. Hughes had a woeful record in the first half of the season, he only came good once we had people like Zamora and AJ back. A good manager wouldn't have had us in the bottom three at Christmas. The players saved his job when Al Fayed was ready to hand him his P45, and this is how he repays them? I'd love for a journalist to ask him the question 'So Mark, as you kept on complaining at how Man City treated you, how do you feel you've treated Fulham'?
I won't make excuses for Hughes' decision, but I think it's safe to say that Hughes would always live under the shadow of Roy Hodgson while managing Fulham, and rightly so. IMO Hodgson is 10x the manager Hughes is or could ever hope to be. Hodgson not only rescued us from the abyss, but then he turned around and did the same thing for WBA. Liverpool was a one-off, and even the players acknowledge they'd let Roy down. At this point I'm beginning to think that Hughes' departure is a good thing. Many people have said it: his heart wasn't in the job and his success this year is due entirely to the fine work put in by Hodgson. Hughes leaving is also good news because it gives John Pantsil another lease on life, and we need a decent RB. Gera, too, gets another chance to shine. Let's get a visionary manager in her like Jol or O'Neil (my preference) and enjoy the next year.
Let us not get too downbeat over this. Of the 7 teams that finished above us, that's 14 games - Hughes won zero. Fact remains Hughes did to us exactly what City did to him... they both claimed they were not big enough.
I'm not downbeat ... I'm actually seeing a rather large silver lining. Hughes was a caretaker who didn't have long-term ambitions for Fulham. Glad to see him go. The fact that Hughes has no team to call his own (yet) means he can't cherry-pick our best players to bolster his side. Win - win for us. My only concern is that O'Neil, Jol or McClaren will do the same thing ... enjoy the success that Roy built, then leave us at the alter.
We will always be a team that will be used by certain managers to go to bigger clubs, I just guess its what happens to the mid-table sides
right, so if the team does well then its the players getting the results, but at the same time its the managers fault if the team is in the bottom 3? one or the other mate. also, about man city, he was sacked when they were around 5th, then got a nice pay off, with his reputation relatively intact. as to how he's treated fulham, if you werent aware, sparky simply fulfilled his contract, and broke it when he was perfectly entitled to. there were reports that he was frustrated about not getting a new contract to reward him for his seasons work - the club didnt give it to him. from day one it was written into his contract that he could break it after one year. he probably felt he had taken the club as far as he could - would you prefer he carry on his work even if his heart wasnt in it?
"would you prefer he carry on his work even if his heart wasnt in it? " Course not & he's gone anyway. Your arguments are very black and white, and although that suits our colours you'll see we go into a bit more detail on the Fulham boards. Subtlety.
