Benjamin Mendy - City lose case and Mendy awarded £11m in back pay (p168)

[Gareth Barry Conlon]

I think the club might have reasoned that "CITY CONTINUE TO PAY MENDY" was a worse headline than "CITY FORCED TO PAY MENDY." I'm not sure it matters that much either way from a PR point of view.

This is exactly it.

there was probably a clause in the contract that said if the club has grounds for suspension they can also do it without pay. But it's probably one of those clauses that has no legal standing and we were bound to lose in court.

But even though we new this would happen we've made the call to fight all the way instead if settling. PR probably the reason.

 

[Shirley]

His career is effectively over at 30, he's got some retirement money now though.

I’ve read he’s still playing for a club in France FC Lorient

 

[bluemoon32]

I’ve read he’s still playing for a club in France FC Lorient

Yeah but hasn't played yet this season

 

[Manc in London]

Even if it were not for the court case, we would have ended up making a significant loss on him as he was simply not up to scratch.....when he was fit.

It's a net positive for City as Mendy being unavailable led to a situation where a midfielder who cost us £1.5m and paid comparatively low wages played well for us at LB, contributed to our success and we sold him for a +£40m profit. Let's not forget, Zinch played a key role in the end of season game against Villa, coming off the bench to set up the Rodri equaliser (there was only going to be one winner after that point). On it's own, that makes it worthwhile.

 

[Blue Til Death]

Well he never did here .

I remember him at Wolves away a few seasons back, I’ve never seen a more inept performance by any footballer in any league in the world..

 

[Mad Eyed Screamer]

What a mess this whole thing has been.
Hopefully it can get put to bed and we can all move on.

It was being put to bed that started the whole thing

 

[GOULDYBOBS]

It was being put to bed that started the whole thing

Yeah poor choice of words in hindsight!

 

[GaudinoMotors]

I said when the story broke he should win and get what he was owed and look at that he has.

well done to him, hope he can move on start playing football regularly.

A lot of us did - thats why it's so perplexing, City didn't.

 

[blue b4 the moon]

A lot of us did - thats why it's so perplexing, City didn't.

Maybe what happened was we were not willing to pay him for the period he'd not got himself into bail trouble and the case was really only about that part of the payment & he refused to accept the other monies until this was cleared?

After all we all know how the media would twist anything that goes against us.

 

[Chris in London]

there was probably a clause in the contract that said if the club has grounds for suspension they can also do it without pay.

Actually there wasn't. But at common law, if someone makes themselves unavailable for work an employer can legitimately refuse to pay them.

Mendy had two problems: first, the nature of the alleged offences meant that he was suspended under FA rules from all football related activity, so he couldn't train, play, etc.

The second is that his relentless partying in breach of his bail conditions meant he got banged up twice, so he couldn't have played anyway.

What the court decided was that the automatic FA suspension was something Mendy had no control over, so it wasn't legitimate to withhold his wages for those periods, and the allegations were never proven anyway. But he had no-one to blame but himself for breaching his bail conditions, so the club was entitled not to pay him for the periods when he was inside.