Yes, I fully agree. It's appalling, really, as exemplified by Paul Moulden having been the subject of a large bid from Spurs before he even played in the first team.
The MEN reported it as a 'name your price' offer but a few years later I was told by a very good source when doing legal work for the club that it was a six figures guaranteed rising to a couple of hundred thousand with bonuses. In the light of that, only a truly incompetent cheapskate operation would have insured Moulden for GBP 10K, even when still a 17-year-old youth-teamer.
For Lakey, having long since made the senior side and having attracted GBP 2 million offers, to still be insured for that sum defies belief. The club should have been looking at a seven figure pay-out when he was unable to carry on, so it's negligent management for us to have received such a derisory sum. That's shocking enough.
But then there's the fact that Lakey himself was shafted by such parsimony given that the pay-out to him was pitiful, depending as it did on the sum he was insured for. But it gets worse. I think he's aware now that, after doing his cruciate for the second time at Boro in 1992, he carried on for years trying to get fit again when, in retrospect, there was never any chance of him returning to the first team. No one within the club had any incentive to try and stop him.
You can bet your life that if MCFC had a potential GBP 1.5 million pay-out resting on him retiring, someone would have had a quiet word with him and explained that he'd never make it back. And that would have been a great service to him. If you've read his book, you'll know that his mental health really suffered throughout his futile battle to return and he should have been spared that.
It's really quite remarkable that he still loves the club today in the way he does. He'd be perfectly justified in having nothing but untrammelled and rancorous hatred towards the institution that is Manchester City Football Club.
