CONFIRMED Michael Verrips

[LoughboroBlade]

You can also expect a volley of attacks of hypocrisy aimed at the club. I can already see it – the club that kicked up a massive fuss about a rival going against the rules in order to sign and play a player that they don’t actually own is now embroiled in a challenge to FIFA after apparently signing a player still owned by another club. I’ll even draft the headline.

VERRIPS TEARS OPEN BLADES SCANDAL

Over to you Martin...

 

[Moan? Nope-I saw Longhorn]

League rules, not a club stipulation.

Definitely won't be playing against Man U.

Cheers

Good news about the Cup final(s) mind:-

In the Premier League, players on loan are not permitted to play against the team which holds their registration (section 7.2 of rule M.6). Loanees are, however, allowed to play against their 'owning' clubs in cup competitions, unless they have played for their owning club in that cup

 

[ElephantBlade]

When this is brought to Pitsmoor Pigs attention the lot is going to go up.

He'll be very confused by the foreign names.

 

[metalblade]

What does Martin Samuels have to say about it

 

[VwBlade]

I'm not gay, but if I was.....

If he gave you a prostate exam he'd end up poking your eye out

 

[bettsyblade86]

You've been googling cock haven't you Bettsy?

No more than usual

 

[PaddysMad]

Got 1 right

 

[RammyBlade]

Heard Verrips has been wanting to join us for a bit now.

Think he supported us a youth and it was always his ambition to join us !!!

 

[Cerberus Blade]

"Verrips"

It's what our Westfield Corner fans say when they mean "Phillips"

 

[jono_t2000]

From what I understand, Belgium law states that if an organisation is found guilty of committing illegal practices then they cannot force an employee to remain within the business (regardless if on a fixed term contract or not) and to do so is a breach of civil rights.

 

[1889]

I don’t think he’ll play or be near the squad, until his status as a free agent is confirmed by the FA/EPL/FIFA or Belgium authorities.

The last thing we need is another court case or heaven forbid, a transfer embargo

 

[Isaw Joeshaw]

From what I understand, Belgium law states that if an organisation is found guilty of committing illegal practices then they cannot force an employee to remain within the business (regardless if on a fixed term contract or not) and to do so is a breach of civil rights.

Interesting , but requires a little more authenticity .

In the meantime , would it be too much to expect our highly respected resident Legal Eagle to give us his thoughtful and well considered opinion on the matter ?

 

[S64 Blade]

Stewart Lee is that you??

 

[Zone Man]

Think it's fair to say that, without any shadow of doubt, Sheffield United football club needs to make sure that he has no involvement with any first team activities (relating to any Premier League or Cup competitions) until they receive further 100% 'concrete' clarification and authority from FIFA and / or the Premier League and / or the FA with regard to this matter.
We certainly don't need any kind of points deduction or heavy fine coming our way for 'illegal player registration' (or whatever) now do we???!!!
And if it came down to it, I'm pretty sure West Ham would be one of the first to be calling for our relegation as a result of any 'wrong doing'!!
Let's not be silly, just keep him well out the way of any first team squad involvement until such time that everything has been rubber stamped.

 

[loyalblade95]

Similar thing happened with sporting Lisbon last summer with players cancelling their contracts over a fan violence incident don't remember anything coming of that that affected players or their new clubs

 

[Athens Blade]

Does anyone think that Chris and his team haven’t asked the questions or done their homework on this?

 

[finlaytheblade]

Think it's fair to say that, without any shadow of doubt, Sheffield United football club needs to make sure that he has no involvement with any first team activities (relating to any Premier League or Cup competitions) until they receive further 100% 'concrete' clarification and authority from FIFA and / or the Premier League and / or the FA with regard to this matter.
We certainly don't need any kind of points deduction or heavy fine coming our way for 'illegal player registration' (or whatever) now do we???!!!
And if it came down to it, I'm pretty sure West Ham would be one of the first to be calling for our relegation as a result of any 'wrong doing'!!
Let's not be silly, just keep him well out the way of any first team squad involvement until such time that everything has been rubber stamped.

Don't think he will replace Henderson just yet ! Or even Moore come to that!

 

[Belgian guest]

From what I understand, Belgium law states that if an organisation is found guilty of committing illegal practices then they cannot force an employee to remain within the business (regardless if on a fixed term contract or not) and to do so is a breach of civil rights.

KV Mechelen received a disciplinary sanction from the Belgian sports arbitration court.
But there is still an ongoing judicial investigation by the Belgian court. This will end in September at the earliest for the match fixing part and also involves money laundering practices in which probably 80% of the Belgian clubs are involved. Furthermore KV Mechelen as a club is not under investigation for the match fixing part. So the club has not been found guilty by Belgian law and will not be because they are not being investigated for the matchfixing part.
I am not a specialist in case law, but I do not know whether the disciplinary sanction by the Belgian Football Association is sufficient to terminate an employment contract.

This goalkeeper also mentioned that he was contacted by Sheffield Utd for the first time on July 17th, which happens to be the day the disciplinary sanction was announced. On July 20th he had no problems playing in the Supercup (your Charity Shield) for the team he despises so much. So I don't know if a judge will take this in consideration.

In the meanwhile the club has still not released him following UEFA and FIFA rulings, so they will also have a say in this.

 

[1889]

Does anyone think that Chris and his team haven’t asked the questions or done their homework on this?

Yes of course they have, but they haven’t necessarily got the definitive answers before the transfer deadline.

I don’t think we’ll see him involved until they have, Saturday will show us if it’s all been formally ratified or if they’re still awaiting clearance.

 

[jono_t2000]

KV Mechelen received a disciplinary sanction from the Belgian sports arbitration court.
But there is still an ongoing judicial investigation by the Belgian court. This will end in September at the earliest for the match fixing part and also involves money laundering practices in which probably 80% of the Belgian clubs are involved. Furthermore KV Mechelen as a club is not under investigation for the match fixing part. So the club has not been found guilty by Belgian law and will not be because they are not being investigated for the matchfixing part.
I am not a specialist in case law, but I do not know whether the disciplinary sanction by the Belgian Football Association is sufficient to terminate an employment contract.

This goalkeeper also mentioned that he was contacted by Sheffield Utd for the first time on July 17th, which happens to be the day the disciplinary sanction was announced. On July 20th he had no problems playing in the Supercup (your Charity Shield) for the team he despises so much. So I don't know if a judge will take this in consideration.

In the meanwhile the club has still not released him following UEFA and FIFA rulings, so they will also have a say in this.

Thanks for your feedback Belgian guest. Question for you, do you think its a smart idea for Mechelen to be appealing to FIFA? Even if Mechelen win the appeal its not like the player is going to want to be back at the club. Instead it would bring Mechelen back to the forefront of media attention and drag up all the club issues and make Mechelen look like a logistical nightmare of a club to be involved with.

Surely the wise move would to have been to accept the player doesn't want to be at the club anymore, terminate his contract and move on.

 

[1889]

Thanks for your feedback Belgian guest. Question for you, do you think its a smart idea for Mechelen to be appealing to FIFA? Even if Mechelen win the appeal its not like the player is going to want to be back at the club. Instead it would bring Mechelen back to the forefront of media attention and drag up all the club issues and make Mechelen look like a logistical nightmare of a club to be involved with.

Surely the wise move would to have been to accept the player doesn't want to be at the club anymore, terminate his contract and move on.

Surely KV Mechelens motivation will be to secure a transfer fee for Verrips, not to welcome him back into their squad

 

[elgoog44]

Surely KV Mechelens motivation will be to secure a transfer fee, not to welcome him back into the squad

that would be my thoughts, he would be worth a few bob as he seems to be a good keeper

 

[jono_t2000]

Surely KV Mechelens motivation will be to secure a transfer fee for Verrips, not to welcome him back into their squad

We did table an offer. They refused to sell so we pulled the offer and took him on a free instead.

 

[Jesus_was_a_Blade]

KV Mechelen go to Fifa over goalkeeper Michael Verrips' move to Sheffield United

KV Mechelen say they will take "the necessary steps at Fifa" after Sheffield United sign goalkeeper Michael Verrips.

www.bbc.co.uk

At this point do we get some sort of discount on lawyers fees?

 

[Superblades]

It sounded dodgy from the start, got to trust the club they have done their homework on this one.

 

[finlaytheblade]

It sounded dodgy from the start, got to trust the club they have done their homework on this one.

Yep having been bitten by the Tevez affair and the on going one with the prince the club would be foolish to go out on a limb about an untried goalie.

 

[Belgian guest]

Thanks for your feedback Belgian guest. Question for you, do you think its a smart idea for Mechelen to be appealing to FIFA? Even if Mechelen win the appeal its not like the player is going to want to be back at the club. Instead it would bring Mechelen back to the forefront of media attention and drag up all the club issues and make Mechelen look like a logistical nightmare of a club to be involved with.

Surely the wise move would to have been to accept the player doesn't want to be at the club anymore, terminate his contract and move on.

This is a difficult one to answer. Personally, I agree. Let's cut him loose and prepare for the future and never mention him again. )
But if your are losing out on some money again, I think it ends at some point.

I'll try to line up some things to give you an idea what is going on here:

- With the media attention the club, players and there supporters have had in the last 10 months, I don't think it makes any difference anymore if they get some more by going to FIFA.

- Right now there are no people left at the club who were (presumably) involved with the matchfixing. So to say that the worst crime was committed by the club and he can not play for such a club anymore, well... Then you blame all the people in the club who have nothing to do with it and who were helping, training and supporting you throughout the time you were there. And I can name some other teams (in Belgium, Europe, the world) that have problems with a board or owners that don't know much about ethics. Not even mentioning all those player managers who really are responible for lot's of player - club problems.

• Throughout last season there was one team in the second tier who were also fighting for promotion and who were constantly trying to destabilize players, staff from Mechelen and were trying to get into the supporter's heads by constantly leaking lies in the media and feeding public opinions and so on. It had te opposite effect. The team became so tight together that they won the Championship and the Belgian Cup. One of those strongholds was Michael. So this opponent team is pretty much hated by everyone involved with Mechelen.
• This team has 2 owners that each own 50% of the club. One of them is a Belgian building promotor (who took partial ownership not because he supports the team, but he wants to build a new stadium with his company when they reach the 1st tier, he has time until 2022 to accomplish this). The other 50% is owned by some Saudi prince... (Guess who...)

So, the rumour goes that all of this has been arranged by some people who are involved with both Sheffield Utd and that other Belgian second tier team and Michael's manager.

In short: Michael is a very good goalkeeper that has the potential to become great, if he get's enough playtime. But in this I think he's been used as a pawn in some dirty game.

It's difficult to explain to people who haven't been following Belgian football last year. And even for Belgians it's difficult to understand because a lot of lies were told in the press, and a lot of essential things have not been brought out into defence of the club because there is still an ongoing investigation.

 

[Belgian guest]

We did table an offer. They refused to sell so we pulled the offer and took him on a free instead.

There were talks with Michael's management for days already. Eventually an offer was made on Wednesday and retracted on Thursday before an answer was given.

 

[elgoog44]

Yep having been bitten by the Tevez affair and the on going one with the prince the club would be foolish to go out on a limb about an untried goalie.

and to be fair not a player that will or would be as influential as Tevez was for west ham.

I personally think this fight will be about money and not about points or anything like that, I think they just wanted a fee for him, and if it proves to be the case that he should not have ripped up his contract, I am guessing we will need to pay something to the Belgium club for his services.

Below is a nice peace on the whole Tevez third party ownership.

 

[Snowman]

This is a difficult one to answer. Personally, I agree. Let's cut him loose and prepare for the future and never mention him again. )
But if your are losing out on some money again, I think it ends at some point.

I'll try to line up some things to give you an idea what is going on here:

- With the media attention the club, players and there supporters have had in the last 10 months, I don't think it makes any difference anymore if they get some more by going to FIFA.

- Right now there are no people left at the club who were (presumably) involved with the matchfixing. So to say that the worst crime was committed by the club and he can not play for such a club anymore, well... Then you blame all the people in the club who have nothing to do with it and who were helping, training and supporting you throughout the time you were there. And I can name some other teams (in Belgium, Europe, the world) that have problems with a board or owners that don't know much about ethics. Not even mentioning all those player managers who really are responible for lot's of player - club problems.

• Throughout last season there was one team in the second tier who were also fighting for promotion and who were constantly trying to destabilize players, staff from Mechelen and were trying to get into the supporter's heads by constantly leaking lies in the media and feeding public opinions and so on. It had te opposite effect. The team became so tight together that they won the Championship and the Belgian Cup. One of those strongholds was Michael. So this opponent team is pretty much hated by everyone involved with Mechelen.
• This team has 2 owners that each own 50% of the club. One of them is a Belgian building promotor (who took partial ownership not because he supports the team, but he wants to build a new stadium with his company when they reach the 1st tier, he has time until 2022 to accomplish this). The other 50% is owned by some Saudi prince... (Guess who...)

So, the rumour goes that all of this has been arranged by some people who are involved with both Sheffield Utd and that other Belgian second tier team and Michael's manager.

In short: Michael is a very good goalkeeper that has the potential to become great, if he get's enough playtime. But in this I think he's been used as a pawn in some dirty game.

It's difficult to explain to people who haven't been following Belgian football last year. And even for Belgians it's difficult to understand because a lot of lies were told in the press, and a lot of essential things have not been brought out into defence of the club because there is still an ongoing investigation.

Well what a surprise. I'll go to t'foot of our stairs.