Grays Athletic facing suspension

[LSUY]

The FA are threatening to suspend Grays Athletic from all competitions if they refuse to pay one of their former players.

The reason why Grays terminated Ashley Sestanovich's contract and are refusing to pay the £14,000 in wages is because the player has been found guilty of conspiracy to rob. He has been jailed for 8 years and the other two men involved have been jailed for life for shooting dead a man.

The club claim that Sestanovich originally told them he was being held on remand for motoring offences, but once the nature of the charges became known they served him with 14 days' notice.


Grays chairman Mike Woodward said: "We are being forced to pay approximately £14,000 to a player who only had three training sessions and 20 minutes in a pre-season friendly due to his involvement in a heinous crime which saw a young father shot in cold-blood.

"Unfortunately my principals will not allow me to pay this money from either my own pocket, or from the club's, and the directors are of the same opinion.
"I feel sorry for the supporters of this club but I hope that you will back me on this decision."

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What is everyone's opinion of this. Are the FA right to threaten suspension? Or are Grays right to refuse to pay?

 

[Legend10]

Gray's are totally right.

i can't believe that the club doesn't have a code of conduct in place and in any case I thought that it was the employers right to terminate the employment of any individual in the first 12 months.

 

[SpurSince57]

Ridiculous.

How very uncharacteristic of the FA to flex its muscles with a little club.

 

[Marty]

Grays all the way.

btw, do you have a link?

 

[yawa]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/essex/7280939.stm

 

[paul_1979yid]

Good on Mr Woodward :clap::clap::clap:

There is a way he can get around the FA though...........................Start talking broken english in a Russian accent and call the FA to discuss the matter.

Tell them your name is Roman and how the FA normally carry out favours for you in over turning red cards, providing your team with favourable FA and League cup draws and letting the captain (and National team captian) get away with rape and murder in the penalty area yet never conced a pen.

If this fails to work then offer them money. Money talks and its amazing that all the above can be achieved by some cash being bunged at top FA brasses.

:beer:

 

[paul_1979yid]

Any news on this one yet?

 

[MattWilliams]

Football continues to get more and more ridiculous. I'm not sure that there is a brain cell between any of the top brass.

 

[stevenurse]

I used to play for grays and the chairman is a right twat but he is totally right here. How can sestanovich want compo when he was involved in that!?

 

[Kendall]

Our FA really are embarrassing in all departments.

 

[BoringOldFan]

Clearly Grays are justified in what they are doing. But whether they are legally correct is another matter. Knowing what a horse's arse the law is, I tend to think the player will get his money.

Grays' best chance may be to sue the player for misrepresentation if he didn't disclose the nature of his conviction prior to signing the contract.