Mick McCarthy - A Moral & Legal Question :

Mick McCARTHY- A Moral & Legal Question :



In a previous thread , I raised the question :”could this be why MM is still our manager” ?



This received a lot of attention . I questioned whether the real reason that he is still around is because we - the Club- can not afford to sack him and Tan is not yet willing to foot the whole bill and rightly so if you feel someone is not doing their job properly.


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It now looks that this is very likely why he is still around. If this is the case , then it raises moral and legal questions on both us and him : Legally MM is entitled to ask for whatever compensation his contract stipulates.



This I believe is a substantial amount…. which I wrote about.



MM and every man and his dog knows that he has to go ……..but he is holding out for his pay day. Would anyone here act differently ? Morally , he should walk away because he has now failed to deliver and the Club is in danger. Yes this failure is very much related to the very stringent financial constraints imposed by Tan - but he had accepted this from the outset and had time and again said that he was satisfied with the team.



Legally and morally are we entitled to ask him to leave without full compensation ? Should we honor the contract in these circumstances …. or seek to find loopholes ….. to put pressure on him to leave for less ? We do not know what his contract says.


Yes putting him on gardening leave is an option ….. but what if his contract says that he and only he can pick the team?


So a gardening leave may be tantamount to a dismissal ?



Views please?



In short what I mean is :


(1) MORALLy he should walk away …….but also morally we are obliged to honor the contract. We can not reason that we don’t pay someone because he is doing a bad job …. otherwise there are so many players we should not be paying or paying as much.


(2) LEGALLY - yes we definately have to pay up the letter of the contract …… but should we be finding loopholes not to pay or to reduce what we have to pay ?

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The club should have learnt a lesson(they never will), and inserted various clauses in his contract,can’t for the life of me work out why he was given a three year contract in the first place,or why he would receive such figures to terminate,it’s not that he was in demand when we made the appointment,part of the reason I thought he was taken on in the first place,was because he was a cheap option

The club should have learnt a lesson(they never will), and inserted various clauses in his contract,can’t for the life of me work out why he was given a three year contract in the first place,or why he would receive such figures to terminate,it’s not that he was in demand when we made the appointment,part of the reason I thought he was taken on in the first place,was because he was a cheap option

The rumour that Celtic were considering him for their vacant post panicked the board. Don't know where the rumour started but I can have a good guess.

It was a 2yr contract he was given, he is contracted here until the end of the season in 2023. So roughly 18-19 months left of his contract which if the figures are correct about his salary he would have to write off over £1.5m in wages.
Morally of course he should go, in an ideal world he would admit he has failed to deliver and that he has made us worse than when he arrived. But sadly morals rarely exist in football and if we were in his position would we write off £1.5m knowing it was our last big pay day? Probably not. He will hang on and stay around like a big turd that won't flush away sadly until he is paid off the full amount I would imagine.
He should never have been extended beyond the initial deal last season which stabilised us and he may even have been held in high regard with our fans if he had gone. Now though I have never wanted a manager gone as much, I don't like the bloke he is arrogant, stubborn and has shown nothing positive towards the fans to suggest he even wants to be here other than for the money.
The board put us in this mess, now they are the ones who need to get us out and it won't be cheap.

Unfortunately the days of managers doing the honourable thing and resigning are well gone ! Not many just walk away with nothing any more.

In any other business McCarthy would have been "managed out" on poor performance grounds but clubs seem reticent to ever take that route so I'm guessing there's something in their contracts that makes it difficult to back up in an Employment Tribunal.

However, surely the gardening leave approach is an option ? They could agree to pay his wages until he get's another job ( ) or until the contract expires whichever is sooner. Yes it's costly but it will, at least, spread the cost over a couple of financial years which will help us keep within FFP parameters ?

I don't think the board ever intended getting rid of him until after the Fulham game in any event. Even a caretaker manager likes to have a bit of a "new manager" bounce and that's much more likely to be at home to Boro than away to Fulham !!

MICK McCARTHY



(1) MORALLy he should walk away …….but also morally we are obliged to honor the contract. We can not reason that we don’t pay someone because he is doing a bad job …. otherwise there are so many players we should not be paying or paying as much.


(2) LEGALLY - yes we definately have to pay up the letter of the contract …… but should we be finding loopholes not to pay or to reduce what we have to pay ?

Our problems go far beyond MM I think but a contract is a contract and should be honoured.It would be immoral for the club not to honour their end.We could follow the Jacks example and offer him 5p in the pound as a settlement.

Morally - It does not exist in football due to the amount of money involved. Whoever wrote the contract should take the full blame for this and resign. MM should do the decent thing and walk as he accepted the conditions, said everything was good BUT its gone all wrong. So morally he should resign.

Legally - MM has the right for full compensation according to his contract. What that is well none of us really know. The club could refuse to pay and force him to take them to court. I'm not sure the club have a good argument though. I there anything in the contract that highlights poor performance?

Morally - It does not exist in football due to the amount of money involved. Whoever wrote the contract should take the full blame for this and resign. MM should do the decent thing and walk as he accepted the conditions, said everything was good BUT its gone all wrong. So morally he should resign.

Legally - MM has the right for full compensation according to his contract. What that is well none of us really know. The club could refuse to pay and force him to take them to court. I'm not sure the club have a good argument though. I there anything in the contract that highlights poor performance?

I don't think this is just a Cardiff problem, this happens time and time again with managers contracts.

It appears no matter how badly they perform, unless it's gross misconduct like Malky, they always seem to have their full contract paid off or agree a settlement. Nice work if you can get it !!!!!!

Morally the club and Manager don't give a dam, if they can find a loophole they will dump him on the cheap, if they don't he will stay until they pay him off or put him on gardening leave.

So he will end up on Garden leave or will leave himself now for a few quid less if he thinks he could get another job in less than the remainder of his contract.

The club should have learnt a lesson(they never will), and inserted various clauses in his contract,can’t for the life of me work out why he was given a three year contract in the first place,or why he would receive such figures to terminate,it’s not that he was in demand when we made the appointment,part of the reason I thought he was taken on in the first place,was because he was a cheap option

The rumour that Celtic were considering him for their vacant post panicked the board. Don't know where the rumour started but I can have a good guess.

I don't hold with the Celtic theory, as the Scottish club quickly denied any interest and no one realistically thought it might actually happen

Cardiff City FC employed Mick McCarthy to firefight after a disastrous start to the season, which is now ironically similar (and IMHO) worse than that of the man he replaced, Neil Harris

The original deal was until the season's end but the start Mick McCarthy had was pretty spectacular and even without the old 'hindsight', it is easy to see why the club acted when they did to secure his (and Terry Connor's) futures; but it was pretty much at that moment it started to go pear-shaped

By coincidence or not is a debate in itself, but the 'style' of the team seemed to change at the same point

I recall many on here asking for him to be given a contract at the time, whilst others (including me) implored the club to wait until the end of the season before committing to a manager who hadn't 'achieved' for some years and was recently sacked from a club in Cyprus after only a short tenure


On the topic in hand, I believe the two should meet in the middle now and put this to bed quickly. The club (Vincent Tan or not) should accept their latest 'mistake' and Mick McCarthy should accept he simply isn't doing his job in a way that can even reasonably be called 'satisfactorily' in a profession where points and league positions are the ultimate measures of success

If what we here is correct, the next few days will be key and if we lose tonight and fail to win Saturday, then the pressure will be pretty unbearable on both sides

Morally, Mick McCarthy and his team (TC only?) should do the decent thing and walk but equally morally the club should compensate him somewhat for the contract both sides agreed to

Legally, I guess Mick McCarthy has the stronger case with his contract and I sincerely hope the club don't drag this out in similar fashion to which they have before

Cardiff City FC needs to move on and move on quickly!

Well maybe the legal genius at the city who writes up the employment contract can add the following clause.

If the team has not won a game after X matches played then the club exert the right to terminate the contract immediately - with 4 weeks wages paid as an act of good faith.

All future managers need to agree to it - or we dont employ them.

Talking of which - they should not be classed as employees - they should be classed as self employed. They run their own limited company and the club and the company have a contract to hire the services of the company etc

Last edited by ReesWestonSuperMare on Wed Oct 20, 2021 9:17 am, edited 1 time in total.

The basic premise of a Contract is to provide protection to all parties involved, it can be tested by “fairness” and each party has a “duty to perform”. Obviously football contracts appear to give huge protection to players and managers whilst seemingly offering little to the clubs, other than than the “double edged” benefit that the player or manager is theirs until contract end.

VT spent huge amounts in legal fees to dismiss Malay, probably far more than paying up MM’s contract, being in league 1, which is surely where we’re currently heading, will cost VT considerably more.

Looking at it from MM’s position, this could be his last job, there’s little chance than that any club would be seeking his services. He, probably with good reason, has little or no respect for the current Board and doesn’t make “eye” contact with them on a daily (weekly!) basis. However, although after so many years, he has become very “thick skinned”, he must realise that we’re well past blaming unlucky bad results and the most moderate fan is very upset and angry.

The only perverse “positive” after Sunday was surely that NO Manger could show his face after that and NO Board could allow the situation to continue. It shows how little respect we have for both, that we seem resigned to allow this debacle to roll on.

The basic premise of a Contract is to provide protection to all parties involved, it can be tested by “fairness” and each party has a “duty to perform”. Obviously football contracts appear to give huge protection to players and managers whilst seemingly offering little to the clubs, other than than the “double edged” benefit that the player or manager is theirs until contract end.

VT spent huge amounts in legal fees to dismiss Malay, probably far more than paying up MM’s contract, being in league 1, which is surely where we’re currently heading, will cost VT considerably more.

Looking at it from MM’s position, this could be his last job, there’s little chance than that any club would be seeking his services. He, probably with good reason, has little or no respect for the current Board and doesn’t make “eye” contact with them on a daily (weekly!) basis. However, although after so many years, he has become very “thick skinned”, he must realise that we’re well past blaming unlucky bad results and the most moderate fan is very upset and angry.

The only perverse “positive” after Sunday was surely that NO Manger could show his face after that and NO Board could allow the situation to continue. It shows how little respect we have for both, that we seem resigned to allow this debacle to roll on.

I work through my own limited company, I sign contracts with other companies - and those contracts have termination clauses. Football management should be no different

There is merit in both arguments but at end day micks days are numbered? This scenario happens a lot but it soon gets resolved but its not good for either party so expect him to be gone after wkend..... one spanner is what happens if wins next two games do tan still remove him? To me he still should go as I said previously couple defeats after weekend puts us in more peril for relegation fight... £1.5m if true is a lot but the consequences of keeping mick and possible relegation is far more costly in short and long term to tan and club....

Postby Sven » Wed Oct 20, 2021 9:15 am

JJ1927 wrote:
caerblue wrote:
The club should have learnt a lesson(they never will), and inserted various clauses in his contract,can’t for the life of me work out why he was given a three year contract in the first place,or why he would receive such figures to terminate,it’s not that he was in demand when we made the appointment,part of the reason I thought he was taken on in the first place,was because he was a cheap option


The rumour that Celtic were considering him for their vacant post panicked the board. Don't know where the rumour started but I can have a good guess.

I don't hold with the Celtic theory, as the Scottish club quickly denied any interest and no one realistically thought it might actually happen

Cardiff City FC employed Mick McCarthy to firefight after a disastrous start to the season, which is now ironically similar (and IMHO) worse than that of the man he replaced, Neil Harris

The original deal was until the season's end but the start Mick McCarthy had was pretty spectacular and even without the old 'hindsight', it is easy to see why the club acted when they did to secure his (and Terry Connor's) futures; but it was pretty much at that moment it started to go pear-shaped

By coincidence or not is a debate in itself, but the 'style' of the team seemed to change at the same point

I recall many on here asking for him to be given a contract at the time, whilst others (including me) implored the club to wait until the end of the season before committing to a manager who hadn't 'achieved' for some years and was recently sacked from a club in Cyprus after only a short tenure


On the topic in hand, I believe the two should meet in the middle now and put this to bed quickly. The club (Vincent Tan or not) should accept their latest 'mistake' and Mick McCarthy should accept he simply isn't doing his job in a way that can even reasonably be called 'satisfactorily' in a profession where points and league positions are the ultimate measures of success

If what we here is correct, the next few days will be key and if we lose tonight and fail to win Saturday, then the pressure will be pretty unbearable on both sides

Morally, Mick McCarthy and his team (TC only?) should do the decent thing and walk but equally morally the club should compensate him somewhat for the contract both sides agreed to

Legally, I guess Mick McCarthy has the stronger case with his contract and I sincerely hope the club don't drag this out in similar fashion to which they have before

I agree, but think that as any other "potential" employers can probably see a lot of better options out there he is unlikely to do the decent thing.
The only thing that I could see that might change the position would be if there are were any other boards overseas in a developing area for football that might still be interested in his "experience".

Slim chance though.

I don't think it's any of these cases. I think tan is the money man and dalman is the decision maker. And I think dalman hired MM and then gave him a 2 year deal. And he doesn't want to show he got another big decision wrong in the hiring of MM and that he's holding out as long as he can for him to turn it around to save face.

Well maybe the legal genius at the city who writes up the employment contract can add the following clause.

If the team has not won a game after X matches played then the club exert the right to terminate the contract immediately - with 4 weeks wages paid as an act of good faith.

All future managers need to agree to it - or we dont employ them.

Talking of which - they should not be classed as employees - they should be classed as self employed. They run their own limited company and the club and the company have a contract to hire the services of the company etc

Agree MM would have been desperate for a job when we employed him and I suspect given how much money he got would have been very flexible on agreeing terms. There should have been a clause saying something like if we were in the bottom six for more than two weeks the contact could be terminated with only say a quarter of the compensation to be paid. Does not seem like any of our board had the foresight to do something like this.

Well maybe the legal genius at the city who writes up the employment contract can add the following clause.

If the team has not won a game after X matches played then the club exert the right to terminate the contract immediately - with 4 weeks wages paid as an act of good faith.

All future managers need to agree to it - or we dont employ them.

Talking of which - they should not be classed as employees - they should be classed as self employed. They run their own limited company and the club and the company have a contract to hire the services of the company etc

Agree MM would have been desperate for a job when we employed him and I suspect given how much money he got would have been very flexible on agreeing terms. There should have been a clause saying something like if we were in the bottom six for more than two weeks the contact could be terminated with only say a quarter of the compensation to be paid. Does not seem like any of our board had the foresight to do something like this.

Any manager backing his own ability should be prepared to take a rolling one-year contract with a set 'buy out' clause

The issue arises when the manager is 'successful' and he has other 'options' but the club want to keep him

Clearly, that doesn't relate to the current manager but I can see why any club would want to tie down any manager they feel would take their club forward

It hasn't worked in this case but that is not the point in the wider picture

It's also worth noting that if the club sacked or put Mick on 'gardening leave', any action he might take would almost certainly result in compensation being ordered but at a lesser figure than the value of remainder of his contract

All the club need to claim is 'an irretrieveable breakdown in trust' and any tribunal award will be solely financial

The basic premise of a Contract is to provide protection to all parties involved, it can be tested by “fairness” and each party has a “duty to perform”. Obviously football contracts appear to give huge protection to players and managers whilst seemingly offering little to the clubs, other than than the “double edged” benefit that the player or manager is theirs until contract end.

VT spent huge amounts in legal fees to dismiss Malay, probably far more than paying up MM’s contract, being in league 1, which is surely where we’re currently heading, will cost VT considerably more.

Looking at it from MM’s position, this could be his last job, there’s little chance than that any club would be seeking his services. He, probably with good reason, has little or no respect for the current Board and doesn’t make “eye” contact with them on a daily (weekly!) basis. However, although after so many years, he has become very “thick skinned”, he must realise that we’re well past blaming unlucky bad results and the most moderate fan is very upset and angry.

The only perverse “positive” after Sunday was surely that NO Manger could show his face after that and NO Board could allow the situation to continue. It shows how little respect we have for both, that we seem resigned to allow this debacle to roll on.

I work through my own limited company, I sign contracts with other companies - and those contracts have termination clauses. Football management should be no different

Football as never been like any other industry when it comes to contracts it as always favoured the employees not the clubs..... but they also dont learn recently a player signed a 5yr contract with £850m buy out clause several clubs gave suffered with this kind of clause in contract so why do it? But agree something needs to be done .....there again if make it easier for clubs to get rid of you be done more often than it is now future planning will be dodgy.