In my view, we are not on the side of the angels, but we do seem to be a well run ethical business. For that reason, I believe that if Black is going to be handed his P45 it could be that he has a clause in his contract that forbids him making statements to the press without consent from the club. If so, he is banged to rights but could be not guilty of the sleaze of which he is accused. In which case "arsehole" springs to mind! BTW. All this talk of Black speaking French. Aye, laddy. But can our manager understand him?
He has been invited to a meeting with the possibility of a job in the offing...he would have been trying to impress (we are all capable of gilding the lily when out with strangers). This is why we need the whole conversation...was he clear what was being discussed or were they talking in general terms and leading him to show off about his inside knowledge on football. I think it should be made clear to people at Saints that they can't have jobs on the side without clearing it with the club....perhaps they already do and he took no notice. A lot of people in football do other stuff...easy to register it with the club so it is on the record.
Good point. Well made. Most jobs have a "declaration of interests" type register. Not sure whether you must do under employment law, but it is certainly good practice. Breaching this might be considered a straight red card offence anyway. Anyway, he should consider himself fortunate. In Nicola's day he might have found himself testing his swimming prowess in the Solent while wearing concrete wellies!
I'm pretty sure the focus is on that? I'd already said everything regarding the information we have so far, was just agreeing that a lot of people (not on here) seem to think this is being done for the good of the game which clearly isn't the case. I personally think it's a bit twattish to report all of this and not hand over all the information to the accused employers but maybe that's just me. On another note I'd expected us to act by now, concerning.
We have acted....we have spoken to the FA and EPL and asked the Telegraph for full disclosure. Could put Black on gardening leave, but can't sack him without seeing evidence that may or may not clear him. That wouldn't be fair either.
Yeah I know we can't sack him and wouldn't expect us to. Thought we would have suspended him / put him on gardening leave though.
Treble embarrassment - he`s in Saints employ, he`s Scottish and he scored in the ECWCF for Aberdeen. Infamy, infamy !
I don't see that at all. They went after the agents first and got names and then went after the names. Who cares if the meetings were set up as something else. They have gone after people that they had been informed had history. They haven't gone after anyone waving cash and hoping to catch a few first timers.
It might be made up but a couple of them we already suspected and marry the cryptic list we saw. I definitely suspected 2 former Saints managers.
I doubt there are many names. I vaguely know someone who knows someone involved (don't really want to be more specific than that) and I don't think they went fishing to see who would bite. It seems like they heard names and rumours and tried to give those people the chance to hang themselves. The journos have a lot more information (or heard a lot more rumours if you prefer) than they can publish.
Fair point, and sounds about right. If Eric has such a reputation, then I'd rather he wasn't associated to us.
I'm not sure how you can say it's clearly not being done for the good of the game? It's their investigation into corruption, which is good for the game.
I'm saying that's not their main motivation. If it was why haven't they provided the FA/us/QPR full details yet?
They've given their info to the police. We have no idea what's going on behind the scenes so I think you may be jumping to conclusions a bit soon.
But no matter what preceded that snippet, it's hard to imagine what innocent statements led him to condone them approaching an individual with a bribe, while reassuring them that said individual would take it.
I agree with your interpretation, but it could also be part of a general discussion. He could easily mean that X would take a bribe and would get involved....but without meaning that he expected them to go ahead with it. Need the full conversation.
