Richard’s awol ? 18:15 - Jan 29 with 55794 views | paulhoop2 | Have heard a nasty little rumour that Taylor is awol anyone else heard this ? Jokes aside lol apparently not seen at the TG for a while? Clive can you shed any light ? | ![](/images/avatars/0.gif) |
| | ![](/images/icons/ignore-user.png) |
Richard’s awol ? on 22:45 - Feb 1 with 4528 views | colinallcars |
Richard’s awol ? on 22:15 - Feb 1 by BrizR | Footballers are more like fixed term contractors than normal employees. You can't just fire them or hand them notice, as long as they're meeting the minimum performance terms in their contract you're contractually bound to see out the term you signed them up for even if you don't fancy them any more. The contract can only be terminated unilaterally if one side or the other breaches it - for players that usually means if they aren't training or physically fit enough to play (barring genuine injury). This is why you see players the club doesn't want around but who won't agree to an unfavourable transfer sent to train with the reserves - if the player is showing up to training every day, then they're holding up their end and you can't get rid of them, and stopping them doing so might be interpreted as you deliberately making their performance impossible, so the compromise is that they go and train away from the first team and you hope they decide they've had enough and agree to go on loan or be sold somewhere. In Richards' case that might sound simple enough - apparently he isn't turning up to training, so great, terminate him, but it's not as straightforward as that. Obviously players want to be (and are) protected from contract termination in the case of genuine injury, and he might argue that. Also the clause might not be as blunt as "must attend training 5 days per week" but will be more open to interpretation, and anyway he does supposedly show up sometimes. If the club tried to terminate his contract then he'd likely immediately sue and they'd end up having to fight it out in court, which might drag on and cost as much if not more as just seeing out the time/wages he has left - and that's assuming the club wins. As for why would the PFA object, and side with Richards - because it's in their interests to do so. It's much more tactically sound for them to have a blanket policy of supporting players any time a club tries to terminate, because it means that clubs stop thinking of termination as an option. From their point of view, it's much better if clubs see unilateral termination as a bad and difficult thing that they want to do as little as possible, because while you get the occasional Richards who exploits it to steal a living for a couple of years, you also protect the lads whose clubs might otherwise have messed them about or treated them unfairly. |
That's extremely informative but will send me up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire with a headache especially after reading the “ welcome Taylor Richards ” piece posted earlier in this thread. | ![](/images/avatars/22076.gif) | | ![](/images/icons/ignore-user.png) |
Richard’s awol ? on 08:15 - Feb 2 with 4158 views | Hunterhoop |
Richard’s awol ? on 22:15 - Feb 1 by BrizR | Footballers are more like fixed term contractors than normal employees. You can't just fire them or hand them notice, as long as they're meeting the minimum performance terms in their contract you're contractually bound to see out the term you signed them up for even if you don't fancy them any more. The contract can only be terminated unilaterally if one side or the other breaches it - for players that usually means if they aren't training or physically fit enough to play (barring genuine injury). This is why you see players the club doesn't want around but who won't agree to an unfavourable transfer sent to train with the reserves - if the player is showing up to training every day, then they're holding up their end and you can't get rid of them, and stopping them doing so might be interpreted as you deliberately making their performance impossible, so the compromise is that they go and train away from the first team and you hope they decide they've had enough and agree to go on loan or be sold somewhere. In Richards' case that might sound simple enough - apparently he isn't turning up to training, so great, terminate him, but it's not as straightforward as that. Obviously players want to be (and are) protected from contract termination in the case of genuine injury, and he might argue that. Also the clause might not be as blunt as "must attend training 5 days per week" but will be more open to interpretation, and anyway he does supposedly show up sometimes. If the club tried to terminate his contract then he'd likely immediately sue and they'd end up having to fight it out in court, which might drag on and cost as much if not more as just seeing out the time/wages he has left - and that's assuming the club wins. As for why would the PFA object, and side with Richards - because it's in their interests to do so. It's much more tactically sound for them to have a blanket policy of supporting players any time a club tries to terminate, because it means that clubs stop thinking of termination as an option. From their point of view, it's much better if clubs see unilateral termination as a bad and difficult thing that they want to do as little as possible, because while you get the occasional Richards who exploits it to steal a living for a couple of years, you also protect the lads whose clubs might otherwise have messed them about or treated them unfairly. |
All fair and balanced. But also conservative with a small ‘c’. There is always a level of risk in employee dismissal. It’s why so many companies enter into compromise agreements to exit high earners. This costs a lot more but you do it when you know there is a risk you’d lose if taken to tribunal. In football terms it is equivalent to paying up X% of the outstanding contract value, like we did with Johansen, and shaking hands. Here though, I really struggle to see how there is much risk and why the club would lose in court. It is clear he is rarely training. It is clear it is not due to an injury (he’s still be obligated to attend for rehab). Perhaps it is a mental health thing. If club can demonstrate they have made offers of help, and have sought to support him, but he’s 18 months into his contract and showing no signs of fulfilling his obligations, I think they’d have a strong case to place him on statutory sick or terminate his agreement. Finally, consider if this were to go to court. Two things, it would set a very dangerous precedent for the sport if the case was awarded to Richards. It would effectively make it impossible to end a contract (outside of a compromise, which Richards clearly isn’t interested in!) within the current contractual frameworks. Football clubs in the UK aren’t all stupid. What it would do would fairly quickly see clubs draw up different employment contracts protecting themselves. It might mean some clubs lost out on players to those who hadn’t drawn up this clause, but what great big flashing red lights would that send if players started kicking off over the more stringent clauses? In the end I could see a scenario where the PFA backing Richards and Richards winning would actually be a lot more damaging to most of their members in the long run. Better to sacrifice him. Besides, I don’t think he would win. As I said at the start, it’s not hard or overly complex, but it is a risk equation. If the club have evidence they should just act. My suspicion, is they do and will, but cannot this season. The reason being his transfer fee in will have been amortised over the length of his contract, which means upon termination we would have to account as a cost whatever transfer fee had yet to be accounted. If he cost £3m to buy on a 3 year perm deal, we’d be writing off 1.5m at this point in time. And I bet you we don’t have the FFP space for that. Even if Richards were to get nothing. | ![](/images/avatars/2027.gif) | | ![](/images/icons/ignore-user.png) |
Richard’s awol ? on 08:20 - Feb 2 with 4147 views | baz_qpr |
Richard’s awol ? on 08:15 - Feb 2 by Hunterhoop | All fair and balanced. But also conservative with a small ‘c’. There is always a level of risk in employee dismissal. It’s why so many companies enter into compromise agreements to exit high earners. This costs a lot more but you do it when you know there is a risk you’d lose if taken to tribunal. In football terms it is equivalent to paying up X% of the outstanding contract value, like we did with Johansen, and shaking hands. Here though, I really struggle to see how there is much risk and why the club would lose in court. It is clear he is rarely training. It is clear it is not due to an injury (he’s still be obligated to attend for rehab). Perhaps it is a mental health thing. If club can demonstrate they have made offers of help, and have sought to support him, but he’s 18 months into his contract and showing no signs of fulfilling his obligations, I think they’d have a strong case to place him on statutory sick or terminate his agreement. Finally, consider if this were to go to court. Two things, it would set a very dangerous precedent for the sport if the case was awarded to Richards. It would effectively make it impossible to end a contract (outside of a compromise, which Richards clearly isn’t interested in!) within the current contractual frameworks. Football clubs in the UK aren’t all stupid. What it would do would fairly quickly see clubs draw up different employment contracts protecting themselves. It might mean some clubs lost out on players to those who hadn’t drawn up this clause, but what great big flashing red lights would that send if players started kicking off over the more stringent clauses? In the end I could see a scenario where the PFA backing Richards and Richards winning would actually be a lot more damaging to most of their members in the long run. Better to sacrifice him. Besides, I don’t think he would win. As I said at the start, it’s not hard or overly complex, but it is a risk equation. If the club have evidence they should just act. My suspicion, is they do and will, but cannot this season. The reason being his transfer fee in will have been amortised over the length of his contract, which means upon termination we would have to account as a cost whatever transfer fee had yet to be accounted. If he cost £3m to buy on a 3 year perm deal, we’d be writing off 1.5m at this point in time. And I bet you we don’t have the FFP space for that. Even if Richards were to get nothing. |
Would amortisation be the same reason why they have given Kelman an extension as we paid for him? | ![](/images/avatars/1533.gif) | | ![](/images/icons/ignore-user.png) |
Richard’s awol ? on 08:38 - Feb 2 with 4062 views | SK_hoops |
Theres seems to be some Birmingham and QPR useless players connection: Richards, Roberts, Sanderson, Dozzell, Laird... | ![](/images/avatars/0.gif) | | ![](/images/icons/ignore-user.png) |
Richard’s awol ? on 09:55 - Feb 2 with 3877 views | terryb |
Richard’s awol ? on 08:20 - Feb 2 by baz_qpr | Would amortisation be the same reason why they have given Kelman an extension as we paid for him? |
According to SimonD , it would extend the amortisation, but I don't think the savings would be much. Although every little helps! I don't know how much we paid Southend for him, but if it was £900,000 (figure picked for easy arithmetic!), his book valuation at the start of this season would be £300,000. If it was a 2 year extension (again, I don't know how long it was), the amortisation this season would be £100,000. A saving of £200,000. That might be enough to make the difference of what wages we have to pay for 2 of the signings though. If so, the extension could be a good bit of buisness by us. | ![](/images/avatars/0.gif) | | ![](/images/icons/ignore-user.png) |
Richard’s awol ? on 15:07 - Mar 14 with 3169 views | bosh67 |
You just know he's going to finally trudge onto the pitch in the final minutes of the last game of the season with us needing a goal to stay up and actually score it. It would be about the most QPR thing to ever happen. | ![](/images/avatars/1510.gif) |
| ![](/images/icons/ignore-user.png) |
Richard’s awol ? on 15:11 - Mar 14 with 3130 views | TheChef |
Ah yes the Tyler Roberts Memorial Calf Strain. | ![](/images/avatars/2559.gif) |
| ![](/images/icons/ignore-user.png) | Login to get fewer ads
Richard’s awol ? on 15:14 - Mar 14 with 3110 views | aston_hoop | Does make me wonder though given that Rayan Kolli has been the only injured player apparently for the past couple of months. [Post edited 14 Mar 15:16]
| ![](/images/avatars/1351.gif) |
| ![](/images/icons/ignore-user.png) |
Richard’s awol ? on 15:29 - Mar 14 with 3013 views | Northernr | A calf strain so severe they didn't include him in the 25 man squad. | ![](/images/avatars/1005.gif) | | ![](/images/icons/ignore-user.png) |
Richard’s awol ? on 15:33 - Mar 14 with 2974 views | TheChef |
Richard’s awol ? on 15:29 - Mar 14 by Northernr | A calf strain so severe they didn't include him in the 25 man squad. |
Hmmm yeah well...I really want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but it's a little odd why they disclose this now six weeks after the injury occurred. | ![](/images/avatars/2559.gif) |
| ![](/images/icons/ignore-user.png) |
Richard’s awol ? on 15:45 - Mar 14 with 2886 views | Wegerles_Stairs |
Richard’s awol ? on 15:33 - Mar 14 by TheChef | Hmmm yeah well...I really want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but it's a little odd why they disclose this now six weeks after the injury occurred. |
The physio probably only saw him six weeks later. | ![](/images/avatars/0.gif) | | ![](/images/icons/ignore-user.png) |
Richard’s awol ? on 15:53 - Mar 14 with 2848 views | kensalriser | It's a patent bunch of crap, but full marks to Marti for diplomacy. | ![](/images/avatars/3082.gif) |
| ![](/images/icons/ignore-user.png) |
Richard’s awol ? on 16:01 - Mar 14 with 2789 views | colinallcars | If pigs could fly bacon would go up. | ![](/images/avatars/22076.gif) | | ![](/images/icons/ignore-user.png) |
Richard’s awol ? on 16:03 - Mar 14 with 2782 views | DeanoMD |
One of the rarest injuries in professional football. It must be a a bad level 2 or 3 grade tear to keep him out this long and he must have been going some to do it, not something one would associate with hanging around Westfield all afternoon........ | ![](/images/avatars/0.gif) | | ![](/images/icons/ignore-user.png) |
Richard’s awol ? on 16:05 - Mar 14 with 2765 views | Northernr |
Richard’s awol ? on 16:03 - Mar 14 by DeanoMD | One of the rarest injuries in professional football. It must be a a bad level 2 or 3 grade tear to keep him out this long and he must have been going some to do it, not something one would associate with hanging around Westfield all afternoon........ |
Isn't it funny, if you had to write a league table of the biggest arsholes we've had at the club over the last two/three years how many of them also all had this same injury. | ![](/images/avatars/1005.gif) | | ![](/images/icons/ignore-user.png) |
Richard’s awol ? on 16:28 - Mar 14 with 2621 views | DeanoMD |
Richard’s awol ? on 16:05 - Mar 14 by Northernr | Isn't it funny, if you had to write a league table of the biggest arsholes we've had at the club over the last two/three years how many of them also all had this same injury. |
Indeed I rate the new guy Ben Williams, he certainly knows his stuff and is well regarded in the S n C industry, he will be highly embarrassed by this. | ![](/images/avatars/0.gif) | | ![](/images/icons/ignore-user.png) |
Richard’s awol ? on 16:32 - Mar 14 with 2606 views | Northernr |
Richard’s awol ? on 16:28 - Mar 14 by DeanoMD | Indeed I rate the new guy Ben Williams, he certainly knows his stuff and is well regarded in the S n C industry, he will be highly embarrassed by this. |
I've literally just put in the preview that what he said at the start of the season about our slow build up leading to greater durability at the end of the season has, so far, touch wood, proved true. | ![](/images/avatars/1005.gif) | | ![](/images/icons/ignore-user.png) |
Richard’s awol ? on 16:56 - Mar 14 with 2485 views | DeanoMD |
Richard’s awol ? on 16:32 - Mar 14 by Northernr | I've literally just put in the preview that what he said at the start of the season about our slow build up leading to greater durability at the end of the season has, so far, touch wood, proved true. |
I know he got some stick a few months back but I work in S n C myself and I was happy with what he was saying, you can't rush the development of strength and conditioning, unfortunately it does take time. So does rehabbing genuine injuries. Professional football in the UK is still a bit in the dark ages when it comes to this would you believe. I was actually pleasantly surprised and pleased when we got him on board. | ![](/images/avatars/0.gif) | | ![](/images/icons/ignore-user.png) |
Richard’s awol ? on 17:32 - Mar 14 with 2323 views | LazyFan | He probably does have this injury now and the club is being on message by stating that publicly to cover themselves. Also, he has to come back to have some playing time in the season to get the next contract with some L2 side. Gotta show he's played every year until the contract runs down. I bet that's his agent's plan. Think, is Richard’s really gonna come back and get into the side ahead of Field, Colback, Chair, Willock, Smyth, Hayden, Hodge, and Larkeche? Heck EDB and Pedder are ahead of him in the Dev squad alone. Even Uncle is ahead of him in getting a contract at an L2 side, and that's only so Uncle can become the legendary EFL player who never played in the Prem that Uncle is. Compare it, old man Uncle vs Richards? We need not say anymore. Marti will know this too, and this is how we know the club is playing the game. | ![](/images/avatars/1596.gif) |
| ![](/images/icons/ignore-user.png) |
Richard’s awol ? on 20:07 - Mar 14 with 1933 views | connell10 |
Richard’s awol ? on 17:32 - Mar 14 by LazyFan | He probably does have this injury now and the club is being on message by stating that publicly to cover themselves. Also, he has to come back to have some playing time in the season to get the next contract with some L2 side. Gotta show he's played every year until the contract runs down. I bet that's his agent's plan. Think, is Richard’s really gonna come back and get into the side ahead of Field, Colback, Chair, Willock, Smyth, Hayden, Hodge, and Larkeche? Heck EDB and Pedder are ahead of him in the Dev squad alone. Even Uncle is ahead of him in getting a contract at an L2 side, and that's only so Uncle can become the legendary EFL player who never played in the Prem that Uncle is. Compare it, old man Uncle vs Richards? We need not say anymore. Marti will know this too, and this is how we know the club is playing the game. |
Albert is a professional athletic, Richards is a complete waste of space and thieving a living at Rangers. He really boils my piss. | ![](/images/avatars/7025.gif) |
| AND WHEN I DREAM , I DREAM ABOUT YOU AND WHEN I SCREAM I SCREAM ABOUT YOU!!!!! | Poll: | best number 10 ever? |
| ![](/images/icons/ignore-user.png) |
Richard’s awol ? on 20:28 - Mar 14 with 1852 views | numptydumpty |
Richard’s awol ? on 16:05 - Mar 14 by Northernr | Isn't it funny, if you had to write a league table of the biggest arsholes we've had at the club over the last two/three years how many of them also all had this same injury. |
How about people that have dodgy knees or listen to what Sandra wants !!!! | ![](/images/avatars/9720.gif) |
| ![](/images/icons/ignore-user.png) |
Richard’s awol ? on 20:30 - Mar 14 with 1841 views | numptydumpty |
Clever by the club Has people guessing even if its only slightly, will enable some of the critics to hold fire - not all obviously - but a good PR move even if it will only fool a few a little bit. | ![](/images/avatars/9720.gif) |
| ![](/images/icons/ignore-user.png) |
Richard’s awol ? on 22:09 - Mar 14 with 1556 views | colinallcars | I was going to go to the Dog & Muffler pub to celebrate the news of Taylor's impending return but my calf was playing up so I stayed in with a bottle of Savvy Blanc. | ![](/images/avatars/22076.gif) | | ![](/images/icons/ignore-user.png) |
| |