Jamal Campbell-Ryce: the saga continues

shrimpers.net – Messageboard

JCR – the “agreement” has been published in the Rotherham Advertiser. I agree that the S Yorks coverage has been heavily in favour of our case and I had assumed that there was some wriggle room involved. However, I have to say that I can understand why our board is upset.

The document in question is a “record of agreement” (as it is headed) sent by your chairman to ours. I think it makes interesting reading for all concerned.

First up, it confirms that personal terms had been agreed and states “for the sake of good order and completeness i am copying this note to Richard Cody and can confirm that personal terms with Jamal have been agreed”. The meat of it is this section:

“this is our best and final offer and the £75000 would be paid this financial year as follows

£15000 upon signing

£20000 payable 1 december 2005
£20000 payable 1 feb 2006
£20000 payable 1 May 2006

Furthmore we would pay an additional £25000 bringing the total commitment to £100000 in accordance with the following schedule.

£10000 for twenty starting appearances
£10000 for thirty starting appearances
£5000 for 40 starting appearances ”

I do believe that Jamal would make thirty starting appearances and in that regard I am prepared to underwrite the £75000″. The document is signed by Ronald Martin, chairman of Southend United FC.

RUFC accepted this offer in writing.

Only the £15,000 has been paid. Our chairman reports that Mr Martin has told him – in terms – that we will have to accept a lower fee because of our financial difficulties and that he is therefore not paying. I cannot say if this is true or not.

At the very least, £40,000 should be coming our way (money which is VITAL to our club). We also say that the wages that we have paid to JCR in the period in which he cannot play for either side should be re-imbursed to us. Not sure about the legality of that, but I can see the moral point. The £75,000 turns on the meaning of “underwriting”, and I’d be less confident on that.

How many games has he played, btw? 6 or so?

One thing I do believe is that your chairman has behaved poorly. Leaving aside what’s enforceable and what’s not, that signed document is pretty clear in its intention. We, like you, are a small club and I’m surprised that your chairman is apparently using our lack of financial clout as a means of getting “one over” on us. I’m sad that there wasn’t more solidarity on this: the Premiership will screw all of us plenty, without doing one another over.

We’ve raised £100,000 so far to save our club. In that context, you can see how important the £40,000 and, of course, the £125K would be.

There is some discussion about whether this document is valid. If it is, I honestly believe that my club has fewer than one leg on which to stand. However, it would appear that this letter was written based on JCR joining the club in August. He didn’t join us until the end of September. Indeed, the fax makes it plain that Ron Martin, Southend United’s chairman, was intending any deal to be completed in time for the end of the August transfer window.

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