The mark of a great football club is the class with which they do business, the values that they work by and the manner in which their staff, players and supporters are treated.
Liverpool, Arsenal and Man United are three Premier League clubs that have long been seen as exemplars in this respect.
Not only do the players on the field work to a certain code befitting of such grand footballing institutions, but everyone behind the scenes too should all be going out of their way to uphold the good name of the football club.
Man City are, perhaps, not there yet but aspire to be, though one recent decision they’ve made could be described as a little petty.
Their Chief Football Operations Officer is leaving the club to join arch rivals, Man United, as their new Chief Executive.
The move is thought to be quite the coup for Sir Jim Ratcliffe and the INEOS group who are just a couple of weeks away from being fully ratified as part owners of the club, with total control of the football side of the business.
Perhaps it’s put noses across town out of joint, because as Sky Sports report, City have now put Berrada on gardening leave until the end of the current season.
It’s believed to be because club chiefs wanted to avoid any potential leaks but still comes across as a little unnecessary.
If you had any business acumen you would note that this is standard procedure in any business. You are just showing your complete niavity
What a load of self righteous sanctimonious nonsense. It is standard practice to impose gardening leave in and management position and especially in executive roles. It would have been in his contract. What is petty is your desperate attempt to bad mouth Man City.
And as for United, Liverpool & Arsenal being oh so wonderful…. United kicked Munich widows out of their homes, both they and Arsenal have conducted a ten year campaign to get City banned from Europe and Liverpool settled out of court paying £1m compensation for hacking City’s youth database.
Try harder next time.
I am a staunch Man United fan but I cannot but agree with you @Ashley Clarke. This article is the definition and apogee of pettiness in the highest order. The man has agreed to leave for a main rival, why should he be allowed to continue working for City as if nothing happened. That is just the right thing to do, put him on gardening or farming leave or whatever you want to call it. Come on, there are so many things you could have written about this topic if you wanted to. Crass.
Kalido K … you’ve already made it clear by declaring your allegiance that your opinion is completely invalid. You’ve also highlighted the fact that your still studying Business at GCSE level if you don’t understand the concept of Gardening Leave!
Do you even know what we are talking about here??? Read my comment twice and then thrice, then maybe, your Master of Philosophy brain would tell you that I am not talking about gardening leave here.
Kalido K
It’s nothing to do with pettiness. The man’s employment is contractual,he will continue to be paid whilst being excused from actually working out his notice period.
I think you both agree that the article was poor, think the above replies were confused and thought you said you couldn’t agree with Ashley Clarke. Both sets of fans think gardening leave is a sensible decision, to call it petty is just plain incorrect.
Appreciate your comment, thank you. Good luck for the rest of the season (apart from when you visit the Etihad of course!)
Caught offside, this is a cheap journalism…It is absolutely normal company proceedure that management employees at this level serve their “agreed notice period” at home and with no access to the company’s accounts, sales and other sensitive operational databases.
Given the fact that Liverpool,Rio Pinto and others are busy hacking into the computer of the most successful club in the UK’ at the present time only a bitter scouser or jealous rag would allow a man so embedded in the CFG to continue to glean information valuable to his next employer and main rival. I think at 21 you have a lot to learn about the real world of business. Normally it is clear your desk immediately into a cardboard box and be escorted off the premises. if you carry on writing this durge it will be you next
There are various concepts to the term gardening leave. If you have copy of your personal terns of employment you can find them under termination of employment, conditions.
I think you got caught offside in this article. No support out of 8 comments posted is poor/abysmal/diabolical. (Take your pick as to which word you prefer)
Question for the above writer of the nonsense masquerading as an article.
As for classy Liverpool – beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Were they being classy when they hacked and stole City Scouting Data?
Just asking.
You might want to give your finger a rest before responding.
Is that a serious post, got to be a windup, You write like a complete turnip. Why would you want a competitor to know your business. Gardening leave happens in all walks of business and totally naive or worse if you don’t think it is.
Fully agree with all the comments, a poor article which is just trying to besmirch the City board, as stated in many of the comments it’s common practice for executives to go on gardening leave before taking up a new position. Just trying to pick a fight for the sake of it, grow up
Joe, joe what on earth are you talking about?
Am not a City fan but you’re being so disingenuous here. These clubs you mention that are this supposed bastion of morality are despicable, always have been always will be.
They never wanted their cartel to be disrupted and the way that City has done it, brings me joy.
oh, and their triple in my view was better than United’s, I don’t remember United beating their local rivals or Liverpool in the Cup final.