According to The Times today....

[dylanisabaddog 4,867]

.....we''re not entitled to compensation because Lambert had a clause in his contract allowing him to speak to other clubs.I think our point will probably be that we didn''t stop him talking to Villa. Being allowed to talk to another club isn''t the same as walking out to join them.

[Zak Van Burger 0]

Lots of villa fans seem to share this view ie we are a club small in history, stature and mind because we tried to renege on PL''s contractual entitlement to speak to other clubs.Tricky trying to decide who to believe between a load of whinging/crowing Brummies and the media or our own CEO on this one.I await the offy statement with interest.

[Darlo dumplin’ 0]

I cannot imagine that any football managers contract would allow him UNCONDITIONALLY to talk to and then sign for another club and effectively disregard the contract. That cannot possibly be right and maybe someone who is familiar with football managers contracts can shed some light on what they normally say? 

[Salopian 1]

If  it is true that there was such a clause, then why did Lambert resign? Why didn''t he merely remind McN what was in the contract?

If it is true that Villa approached him, or him via his manager,then they are guilty or causing him to break his contract.

 

If Villa can establish that they are entirely innocent (although they encouraged the Press to wave a big welcome sign regularly for Lambert to contact them,), then Lambert is guilty of breaking his contract without notice, or he is our employee for the next year. In which case he, or they, would have to pay us one year''s salary, at least.

[Mahogany 0]

It will depend very much on how the contract is written. But I think Villa''s argument is that Lambert had a clause allowing him to speak to other Premiership clubs, maybe he wouldn''t sign a contract which didn''t have this clause. Villa made an approach and we rejected it either before asking Lambert or despite him. Because of this we breached his contract and he resigned. Villa would argue that because of the breach Lambert had the right to walk away whether we accept his resignation or not and we are not due anything.

Now if that is what has happened there are some questions to be asked of how McNally and co dealt with the situation, however I doubt we''ll ever find out the truth.