Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Friday 21 August 2009

21 August 2009

Another match tomorrow, with a chance to put Tuesday's improved performance behind us by getting stuffed at Bury. Can Danny North play like that twice in a row? Is Jamie Clarke right to point out that he played wide right at Bury last season and we won? Or should we rely on manager Newell when he told the superb new official site's subscription channel that we keep losing because of our injuries?

Your Guest Diarist knows Bury are a decent side, and stronger than last year when they missed promotion by two whiskers - automatic on goal difference, and play-offs by losing 4-3 in a penalty shoot-out after leading on 88 minutes. They will score against us - I have almost no doubt about that; the question is, can we? You'd expect Town to start with the same team as against Rotherham given that there are the same players to choose from. Newell told us in the pre-match subscription-only interview that Sweeney was dropped last Saturday because he is unfit. In my view the pre-season training seemed to pass him by, and the weight gain is noticeable. So Newell can only hope to get him fit by playing him twice a week. His talent is as obvious as his current ability to make a defensive wall solo. Danny North, who obviously did make the effort to get fit, told the Telegraph on Wednesday: "I like playing with a big man up front, and play off them, and they don't come any bigger than Baz." True; true.

Yesterday's Diary told us about how Town are managing to avoid paying agents, along with a significant number of other smaller Football League clubs. No bad thing - agents cause a lot of grief and rarely add any value to a transfer transaction. But what I want to know is what you, gentle reader, think about managers who make a percentage when clubs sell players. How else can, say, Harry Redknapp (bless him) afford to live in that really posh house? I'm not suggesting he takes bungs either - maybe he just has a clause in his employment contract with his club that entitles him to a percentage of the transfer fee when a player is sold. I don't know about Mr Redknapp's contract (Harry, you are just a colourful lead-in here), but what I do know is that Mike Newell's contract at Luton entitled him to 10 per cent of the fee every time a player was sold.

Now this is not a scoop, as yesterday's Diary hinted. It's sort of been in the public domain for ages. Dave Conn in the Guardian said in October 2007: "Luton sold Edwards 19 months later, in January this year, to Sunderland, for £1.4m. Luton have said Newell's contract paid him a 10% commission on sales and, if true, he made £140,000 for selling Edwards on. Newell has never commented on the terms of his employment. He is suing Luton for wrongful dismissal and the case will be decided next June." And I am totally confident that Mr Newell did have such a clause. One hundred per cent confident, shall we say.

You have to feel for the new Luton consortium a bit, as every time the previous owners unloaded a player not only did the transfer fee not seem to find its way back into the club to help them be financially stable, but also the contingent liability owed to Newell grew by 10 per cent of the sale value. Now you start to see why he is claiming the amazingly high £2.8m from Luton plus legal fees. And they can't get away with offering him 10p in the pound like the other creditors because the unique rule which only applies to football says 100 per cent of the 'footballing creditors' must be paid 100 per cent before the new owners can join the Football League.

Perhaps the extreme anger Luton fans feel about Newell is more understandable in this context? And I bloody hope that Mr Newell does not benefit from the sale of Grimsby players in similar fashion. Email the Diary at diary@codalmighty.com and let me know what you think. Did Newell deserve that 10 per cent? See yer.