Cooper in the Echo

[Ash]

"I was offered £15,000, but only the first £5,000 was guaranteed. My debt with the club is £35,000. When you sever somebody's contract they can have up to £30,000 tax free. He's saying that I'm only due £23,000, but that would've been had I stayed until the end of the season - I would have been taxed on it.

"We were willing to do deals on what we were owed, but the club wasn't willing.

"I've left it with the LMA and their solicitors. For the club to come out of administration they've got to pay their creditors."

This reads to me like Mark Cooper would have received something like 23k after tax but since the club severed his contract they could make a tax free payment and he wants what the club (or he) would have saved in taxes adding to his pay off, seems a bit greedy to me.

I'm not saying he shouldn't have what he is owed but it seems here like he is trying to get the extra on top that he would never have seen anyway.

The last bit also seems like he is hoping to get as much as he can from the rescue effort - I can understand him wanting his full share from Raj but given the club is on it's knees I would have hoped he would be more reasonable with expectations from a community club.

He says he is willing to negotiate though....

[Feet4ever]

It reads to me that he isn't too concerned about the club that gave him " the happiest day of his managerial career". It's also an article that answers nothing at all-sounds like Stod just listened rather than asked any decent questions( IMHO of course)

[DTID]

The problem Cooper has is that clubs clearly won't touch him because of the budget issue. But he's making things worse for himself by stating in the press he wants everything he's owed when we our club is only just alive!

It kind of sends out the message that he will quite happily kill the club if needs be to get his money.

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[divas]

This reads to me like Mark Cooper would have received something like 23k after tax but since the club severed his contract they could make a tax free payment and he wants what the club (or he) would have saved in taxes adding to his pay off, seems a bit greedy to me.

I'm not saying he shouldn't have what he is owed but it seems here like he is trying to get the extra on top that he would never have seen anyway.

The last bit also seems like he is hoping to get as much as he can from the rescue effort - I can understand him wanting his full share from Raj but given the club is on it's knees I would have hoped he would be more reasonable with expectations from a community club.

He says he is willing to negotiate though....

We would have had to pay him 35K if he'd stopped, yes he would have had to pay tax on that man those are the redundancy laws - you get the first 30K tax-free, that's not greed, it's how redundancy works. If you or I were made redundant we'd expect a full payout from our companies. Legally he's absolutely in the right. Maybe if things hadn't gone on behind the scenes and it had been handled a bit more professionally they could have come to a mutual agreement like many players do which normally involves the club making a saving by only paying their contract less tax - the club then makes a saving by not having to pay that players tax.

Hopefully someone will contact the LMA soon and try to negotiate a little to reduce the amount we have to pay for the football related debt altho I imagine he'd dig his heels in now it's gone this far.

That budget comment has really irked him and I'm sure it's done his future prospects a bit of harm. Personally I think both are probably about right, they are just taking into account different things - agent fees, relocation fees, pay offs etc will be included in Raj's fee but I imagine Coopers will be strictly basic wage and maybe bonuses

[super_les_mcjannet]

Statutory redundancy isn't it one week for every year. Sure due to contract this is different for cooper. I guess many fans wanted him out and this may be the price we have to pay.

[divas]

Statutory redundancy isn't it one week for every year. Sure due to contract this is different for cooper. I guess many fans wanted him out and this may be the price we have to pay.

Yes statutory is one week per year, but you don't pay tax on it, however many companies have enhanced terms. When you have a fixed term contract your guaranteed that income unless your sacked for some kind of breach/gross misconduct.

[super_les_mcjannet]

If only not being top of the league was gross misconduct. I guess this is taken into account for the football creditors and will be paid with the first 250k. I say first as hopefully they will be more.

[Ash]

Damn - just lost the last reply I typed!

In essence I said that I realise it was his tax to pay so the club would have been making a saving and I understand him not wanting that with Raj but I do think it is a little greedy to ask for more than you would have actually received anyway with the club in its current situation, whatever your entitlement.

[Darlofan97]

Interesting when he says, "I should have kept Paul Terry, but there were reasons for that." Must have been a big reason why. Paul was a decent player, and his brother let us train at Cobham.

It's well documented about us offering Aman Verma a contract too. Dryden did us no good in trying to get his signature after he told him to 'put his dummy back in' after Aman stated he wanted to be closer to home.

[MB86DFC]

Where does redundancy come into any of this? He wasn't made redundant, he was fired. Being made redundant means reducing the work force for cost saving measures. He was fired as Raj didn't think he was performing to an adequate standard. If he was made redundant then we can not hire a new manager for a certain length of time (2 years i think?) and would have to replace him with an existing member of staff. This means if we are going down the redundancy route we cannot have a new manager for 2 years. This will be fine if Lidds stays, but if we plan to hire someone new then it isn't redundancy.

If he was made redundant then we could offer him 1 and a half weeks pay for every year worked, if sacked then we have to pay up. If i was Cooper I'd be holding out for all I could get, who knows when his next job will come.

[Ash]

Fair point, he wasn't made redundant and we shouldn't forget that. But if I was Cooper I wouldn't be holding out for all I could get I'd be holding out for a fair settlement though it sounds as though my idea of a fair settlement is different to most, and definitely different to Cooper.

Having said that I don't think he has been offered a fair settlement yet has he? So who knows what he'd take...

[MB86DFC]

Put yourself in his position. You work in the lower leagues of football, he wont have enough money put away to be comfortable for the rest of his life and cant be sure when his next job will come. I would be after every penny for my family.

[Fatty eats roadkill]

Have I been poisoned?

For once MB and I agree on something!

Cooper is entitled to what he is asking for!

[MikeinBlack]

Also, don't forget, he was shafted at kettering too after he left us. He was promised the would have a team etc and got there to find....., so left. Bottom line is that his contract has to be homoured or we don't get out of admin. No if's, no but's.

[Ash]

seems a pretty good deal to me - do a poor job, get the boot, get paid up for a year at a better rate than you got for working then walk into another job, do the same... nice work if you can get it.

[Quakerz]

It's all irrelevant - we HAVE to pay him fully or we're relegated. It matters not whether he is willing to negotiate.

[shawry]

It's all irrelevant - we HAVE to pay him fully or we're relegated. It matters not whether he is willing to negotiate.

No we wouldn't be negotiating in a cva manner, it would be negotiating his severance package, which would then need to be paid in full

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[Lawman3]

The way he says Raj conducted himself confirms my own views of Mr Singh. I was no fan of Cooper's style of play, but he, and the players themselves (not to mention us fans) have been treated with very little respect.