Durhamfootman wrote:He claims he was technically sacked by Newcastle because they didn't ask for his resignation in writing, by some such date, or similar bollox that I don't understand, and his contract says gardening leave if he resigns to take up another post
Ashworth is essentially arguing that he never "resigned to take up another post", therefore the act of placing him on garden leave before he had accepted another job was illegal, and tantamount to being unfairly dismissed.
From what I understand, Man United informed Newcastle they wanted to hire Ashworth, Newcastle informed Ashworth of the approach, and Ashworth then communicated to Newcastle that he was interested in discussing terms with Man United, and asked permission to do so. Newcastle responded by placing on Ashworth on garden leave. So Ashworth is claiming all he did was tell Newcastle he "would" be interested in hearing Man United's proposals, and had not in fact quit, resigned or otherwise informed Newcastle of a final decision while expressing an interest merely to discuss possibilities. Newcastle and United then spent 3 months arguing about the compensation to be paid, and everything stalled with United only being prepared to face 10% of the final cost.
Now on the face of it, Newcastle haven't got a leg to stand on.... until of course you get to the point that Ashworth emailed everyone his secret plan by accident, and that he both shared sensitive information with United illegally, and had already agreed a contract with United while discussing exact plans of how he could leave the club asap.
I would imagine Ashworth will lose in court, but the one thing that makes it uncertain is that Newcastle seem to have only found the email proving the legality of their actions while making investigations into the case. It would be hard to justify such a long garden leave if they in fact did not know about that, but it seems immeraterial.
To anyone with a brain, Ashworth was acting in extreme bad faith, and should not be rewarded for that.