Injured whilst on international duty, surely it shouldn’t be the Upton Park side who foots retirement insurance lay out?
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Dean Ashton has confirmed financially-troubled West Ham are liable for the remainder of his lucrative contract as his insurance was void.
Ashton retired from the game aged just 26 after failing to fully recover from the ankle injury he sustained during his first England call up in August 2006.
The former Norwich and Crewe man, who cost West Ham £7.25million in 2006, last played against West Brom in August of the 2008/09 season.
Ashton was a regular for the Hammers the season before and the club’s then owners handed him a lucrative five-year deal that summer.
Just 18 months later Ashton was forced to call time on his career and he has now confirmed the insurance on his troublesome ankle is void.
As Ashton was injured when West Ham renewed the insurance the company excluded that particular injury from the cover.
The striker, who was capped once by England, believes new owners David Sullivan and David Gold will be furious at having to pay out.
“In hindsight I’m sure they’re ripping their hair out,” explained Ashton.
“At the time I felt I was not going to have any more problems and that I’d got back to somewhere near my best and obviously (the previous owners) felt that as well.
“At the time West Ham didn’t want to lose a striker. At the time five years seemed a lot.
“I had got back and played really well and was in the team every week, and I felt like I deserved a new contract.
“My insurance is void,” he continued.
“There are a lot of things in your insurance where they don’t have to pay you out. If you are injured when you renew it, they can obviously exclude your ankle (from cover).
“But I’m not going to harp on about insurance companies trying to fleece people.
“If they were insuring a house and the roof was knackered then obviously they wouldn’t insure your roof.” (Sky Sports)
You have to feel for Dean Ashton, a player who managed to battle his way up through the leagues and went from League One to the England set up in a very short space of time. A proven goalscorer of the old fashioned variety, a player who could always be counted on to give 100% and able to give the best of defenders a hard time.
Now it appears that West Ham will have to foot a very large insurance bill, but shouldn’t it be the English FA who comes up with the cash? This could be the case that finally throws open the door to a very delicate issue of a national team who is culpable for injuries resulting in long term lay offs, or in this case retirement. It seems only fair that when a player is away on international call up then he is the responsibility of the country concerned.
The amount of times you see players sidelined when playing meaningless friendlies seems to have increased to alarming proportions and surely if West Ham pursued the case to have the England National Team pay the insurance they would have a decent chance of success.
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