A tough read.

[stevebrickman]

https://www.theguardian.com/football...ames-hard-face

We're getting some flack from a few angles here, but to my mind, we are well within our rights to withhold payment pending investigation.

Mckay worked for Nantes; He was being paid 10% of the fee to facilitate the transfer. Mckay also organised the flight, and it has been widely speculated on the aviation forums that given the conditions & qualificatios of the pilot - the flight should never have taken place when it did.

Are Nantes not culpable here? An employee of theirs facilitated the flight.

Happy to be challenged here - but thats how i'm seeing things.

[JennyWren]

Mckay worked for Nantes; He was being paid 10% of the fee to facilitate the transfer. Mckay also organised the fligh
Are Nantes not culpable here? An employee of theirs facilitated the flight.

Happy to be challenged here - but thats how i'm seeing things.

If the flight arrived safely, do you still think we would be wrong to pay the first installment?

[jon1959]

If the flight arrived safely, do you still think we would be wrong to pay the first installment?

Eh?

I don't know whether Mark McKay was 'an employee' of Nantes when he organised the flights - I suspect not - but it would make a huge difference to the legal and financial relationship between the clubs if he was.

If the flight arrived safely it would not be an issue for anyone. Obviously!

[JennyWren]

Eh?

I don't know whether Mark McKay was 'an employee' of Nantes when he organised the flights - I suspect not - but it would make a huge difference to the legal and financial relationship between the clubs if he was.

If the flight arrived safely it would not be an issue for anyone. Obviously!

So, if the flight arrived safely, we should pay the first installment. Because it didn't, we should withhold it. In both scenarios, we bought the player. Sala was only on that flight because he was our player. I can't see why anyone thinks Nantes should be left out of pocket.

[lardy]

We're getting some flack from a few angles here, but to my mind, we are well within our rights to withhold payment pending investigation.

Mckay worked for Nantes; He was being paid 10% of the fee to facilitate the transfer. Mckay also organised the flight, and it has been widely speculated on the aviation forums that given the conditions & qualificatios of the pilot - the flight should never have taken place when it did.

Are Nantes not culpable here? An employee of theirs facilitated the flight.

Happy to be challenged here - but thats how i'm seeing things.

He may have been getting paid to work on their behalf but he wasn't an employee.

[Flyer46]

We're getting some flack from a few angles here, but to my mind, we are well within our rights to withhold payment pending investigation.

Mckay worked for Nantes; He was being paid 10% of the fee to facilitate the transfer. Mckay also organised the flight, and it has been widely speculated on the aviation forums that given the conditions & qualificatios of the pilot - the flight should never have taken place when it did.

Are Nantes not culpable here? An employee of theirs facilitated the flight.

Happy to be challenged here - but thats how i'm seeing things.

I don't think the payment should be withheld pending the investigation, the AAIB investigation could be a very long drawn out process as there are now so many angles that will be getting looked at & the investigation is an aviation investigation that sadly involved a footballer & a pilot in a private aircraft.

Irrespective of what has been widely speculated on the aviation forums that given the conditions & qualifications of the pilot the flight should never have taken place with that pilot at the controls at night. Had the flight taken place at the time that the pilot thought it was supposed to have been scheduled for the chances are we wouldn't be discussing this now.

The pilot was pressured to fly back at night whilst having a Daylight only restriction on his licence, so in terms of who is ultimately culpable I hate to say the pilot is, he should have delayed the flight until the Tuesday morning to allow him to fly within his licence privileges....... Now in real terms I feel all the culpability falls at the feet of the persons who organised the flight ( which includes the pilot usually employed by the McKays & all the people who were skimming a bit away for themselves in the Sala TRANSFER & flight arrangements. )

If the facts are true that the McKay's are on a 10% payday I would say it is fair that any payments that were pledged to them should be withheld whilst the full investigation is ongoing, you can't reward someone for getting something so monumentally wrong. As to the payments due to Nantes I am loathe to say that you purchased the player from them and a set deal was made, you can't renege on that because a noxious football agent screwed it all up for you........ Suing the football agent is the only option, however it now seems he hasn't a pot to piss in and survives on O.P.M. so that isn't going to help much.