Further talks scheduled in Silva compensation dispute

Oh well, Moshiri can afford it, he is his man after all.

Just having my say... this won't end well, but I'll hope for the best!

Let the Premier League earn their money instead of doing their job for them.

Something tells me the Hornets' owners won't be satisfied with just a monetary fine. Is there a sting in this saga — I bloody hope not.

Their form then dipped; most teams have a dip in form at some point, they then proceed to sack Marco Silva. They appoint a new manager, and finish approximately where they were expected to.

It's not as if they were relegated, as a result of events. Maybe I am missing something, but I thought the delay in appointing Marco, after sacking Neanderthal Sam, was that by a certain date, ie, end of May, any contractual obligations had expired.

As Steve Ferns explained in another post, these contracts can be complicated and have lengthy clauses. Surely we have some sort of Legal Advisors that the Club use in these situations.

Slightly off topic but, if any transfer targets involve Watford players, you can bet it will be awkward.

June 1st seems to be significant and the whole world knows how crazy the Watford owners are.

I am a little surprised, however, that talks are still ongoing. I don't know why we wouldn't tell them to get lost and pay Marco his outstanding wages.

Maybe we did cross the line somewhere. It just needs putting to bed asap so we can get a preseason in without complications.

Watford's form then hit the skids, with some people saying Silva's “head had been turned” – whatever that means. How would anybody know the reasons for Watford's downturn in form? It could have happened anyway. They're not exactly world beaters.

Watford then sacked Silva, at which point he presumably becomes a free agent, so we appointed him?

Without knowing more details, it's impossible to know what Watford's case actually is. Maybe we should let it go to the FA so they can throw it out?

Italy has a real litigation culture. The Pozzos are probably expecting a settlement and Everton are having none of it. The Pozzos just won't go away quietly, they want paying off. There's no way we will get a points deduction and we can afford the fine. That's why Silva's in already.

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2013/08/arkell-v-pressdram.html.

Nice one, Charles.

He was also complicit in match fixing in 1990.

They base their footballing philosophy on the 'moneyball' principle.

In order to try to get his man, he or his representatives approached his employer, Watford FC, and requested permission to speak to their manager about our vacancy, whilst making Watford a generous compensation offer if they would allow him to join us. Watford refused on both counts, simple.

We then went back to Watford with the offer of an even more generous compensation figure which they again refused, simple.

At that point in time, we backed away and soon afterwards, appointed Sam Allardyce (there, I've mentioned he who should not be spoken of in connection with our club). Anyway, we did it. So, at that time, Watford still had their manager, we had a new manager, and whatever had happened earlier should have been dead and buried, simple!

Watford then hit a bad run of results, which can and does happen to every club, a bit like our start to the season and Watford, like many clubs before them, pressed the panic button and sacked their manager, simple!

Now, are we to assume that Watford then decided the playing staff were in no way responsible for the poor run of results, and decided the sole reason for their bad run of form was solely down to the fact that Silva's head had 'been turned' by the fact that another club had shown an interest in him? Did they not consider that the fixture list had been relatively kind to them until the beginning of their poor run? Or that a couple of their better players had been hit by injuries? Clearly not. Simple so far?

Now, most managers, when sacked for whatever reason, are usually compensated by their employer if their contract is terminated early (as per Ronald Koeman and Sam Allardyce) but in this case Watford refused to pay Silva any compensation for the loss of his job, simple!

Watford instead tried to place the blame for their poor results on us, because we had tried to get permission to speak to their manager about a job offer. Quite simple!

All now went quiet on the Silva front, until Allardyce was sacked and his name was touted as a potential replacement for our managerial vacancy. Suddenly the pound signs began to flash before the eyes of Watford's greedy, grasping owners. Simple.

Despite the fact that they had sacked him, thus making him a free agent they started to behave as if he was still under contract to them and began their campaign to once again blame us for their decision to sack their manager. And this is where the intangible possibility enters the equation. How can Watford or anyone, including the FA possibly state categorically that their form would not have revived under Silva if they hadn't sacked him when they did? Football is like that, as we all know. Two or three good results could easily have turned things round but Silva wasn't given the time or opportunity to correct what had gone wrong, simple!

So, we have a situation where they are now seeking the very compensation we offered them in the first place but, as Silva is no longer their employee, I fail to see how they can hope to win their case, and as we have, on the surface, done nothing wrong, why the hell are we talking with them about an offer of compensation? If they felt they had a case, shouldn't they have lodged their complaint with the FA months ago?

Would they still be pursuing a compensation claim against us if, instead of joining us, Silva had joined, say, West Ham or Arsenal? A simple no, I think.

The whole thing is ridiculous and fuelled by the greed of Watford's owners. We should tell them to go away forcefully and take up their case with the FA. I just don't see how we are doing anything wrong in employing a man who is legally a free agent who can take up a job offer from anyone who makes him a satisfactory offer. This might be an over simplification of the overall situation, but, to a numbskull like me, it all seems to be, simple!!

What we don't know is the clause that covers the buyout of the contract and ultimately there'll be a payment of sorts from us to them.

The Pozzos are in football to make money. They don't do this in the usual way, they own over 100 players and they employ them at their various clubs and loan them to others. They're all about buying cheap and selling off high. They're just after money from Moshiri.

They haven't a leg to stand on.

Watford have never made a statement that Silva was put on gardening leave. All suggestions are that he was sacked, ie, his contract terminated.

And that goes back to the first point I made – none of us knows the ins and outs of what we did or what the terms of Silva's contract with Watford were.

He wants Everton putting through the mincer and he won't rest until everyone at Everton FC is mincing.

However, the fact that we are trying to come to some kind of financial settlement with Watford would indicate things are not as clear-cut as we think.

Brian, I'm enjoying your book, is Mersey Mariner the latest in the series?

We backed off and got Big Sam, then their form went to shit and they sacked Silva themselves... hardly our responsibility there, is it?

Considering the rub of the green we never get from the Premier League, I wouldn't be surprised that we get some sort of bullshit fine, like suspiciously we had the only player in the Premier League to be retrospectively banned for diving... despite some incredibly blatant activities elsewhere.

One thing that 'may' happen is that we agree with Watford to pay the extra 𧾦k that's owed from the end of Silva's contract, but frankly even that is generous. The fact we're even entertaining this nonsense is annoying; can you imagine Levy, Abramovich or the Man Utd crew paying any heed to this?

Why does everyone think we are innocent in this?

Reports are that we approached Silva directly before speaking to Watford and thus turning his head. This is tapping up and beyond the rules.

Yes, we then approached Watford a couple of times and were rebuffed but we did break the rules. That other teams break the rules is only relevant if we can prove it.

The fact we are negotiating with Watford is because we know we broke the rules. If we were squeaky clean, then we wouldn't have tried to broker a deal.

Our only hopes are (a) Watford agree a deal; or (b) we can prove tapping up occurs commonplace in Football (not sure this would work); or (c) a fine is proportionate and fair and considers that we have acted reasonably to try to settle this case directly with Watford.

As far as I know, we have gone about this the correct way, exactly the way Chris # 32 says. I'm sure we'd have heard direct from Watford if any tapping up had occurred, in the same way as Southampton reported the RS for tapping up Virgil van Dijk. Which they admitted to, by the way. So far, I've not heard anyone from EFC admit or say we were tapping up Silva.

I'm afraid I don't have any evidence. However, if we were squeaky clean then why would we even negotiate?

It's well known that clubs will sound out (tap up) a manager ahead of requesting permission from incumbent club. (No club wants to be declined at the 11th hour due to the public humiliation; yes, it happens... but seldomly.)

It was pointed out somewhere that he had seen a copy of the proposed terms at EFC before we were given permission to speak to him and that is considered tapping up.

We were then told recently that Moshiri had pulled out of any further negotiations after reaching an impasse so I'm guessing (which is all any of us can do without the facts) that their case is not that strong.

Why can't anything Everton do ever be straightforward?