Michael McGlinchey (Weston FC | Australia)

Some interesting details on the Four Four Two forums:

 http://au.fourfourtwo.com/forums/default.aspx?g=po...

Whilst I don't agree with McGlinchey's attempt to get out of his contract, the PFA's argument actually made sense based on the information at hand. Players were asked to sign new contracts with the new owner and told that the old one's would be invalid once the takeover was complete. McGlinchey didn't sign. So in theory, once the take-over was confirmed he was without contract.

The real point of interest out of all of this is that the FFA is allowing a non-existent group to retain legal ownership of one of their franchises. Furthermore, the franchise in question is known to be in financial difficulty. So the FFA are allowing a financially troubled franchise to be run by a non-existent owner... The question is... Why hasn't the entity been switched over the Charlesworth's ownership?

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

rbs		Hardcore Fan

That's not the way that the ownership structure of the Mariners works.

The entity that currently holds the licence (Central Coast Mariners FC Pty Ltd) is majority owned - I think it's around 75% - by a company called Mariners FC Developments Pty Ltd, and has been since 2009. Mariners FC Developments was established by Peter Turnbull and Lyall Gorman to build the Centre of Excellence at Tuggerah.

The "change of ownership" that took place last year was that Mike Charlesworth - who was a 1/3 shareholder in Mariners FC Developments - bought out Turnbull and Gorman's shares in that company, giving him effective control of the Mariners.

According to the letter of variation released by the PFA yesterday, the licence was supposed to transfer to a new company - CC Mariners Pty Ltd - that was 100% owned by Charlesworth, yet for reasons that have yet to be disclosed by the FFA or the Mariners it never did. Based on the "principal place of business" information from ASIC, this company has never carried out any of the operations of the club, and probably never will.

So throughout the whole process from October 2013 the licence has been in effective control of Mike Charlesworth.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Benjamin

Moderator

I don't see anything in what you say that changes what I said. Mariners were owned by "A", players asked to sign contracts with "B", "A" still officially owns the Mariners... This is where the confusion comes from.

rbs		Hardcore Fan

Besides, the players were reported asked to subsequently sign a letter noting that the licence had never transferred.

In McGlinchey's case his contract remained with "A", which held the licence the entire time. In fact, "A" would have been the entity that was party to McGlinchey's loan deal with Vegalta Sendai (since he signed it after the purported change in licence)... so McGlinchey's agent surely should have been aware that "A" was still in control.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Benjamin

Moderator

If the FFA made it known that the take-over hadn't gone through, and if McGlinchy/PFA was advised that the players had been told the change didn't go through, then the PFA don't have a leg to stand on... It all adds to the basic statement that nobody appears to have known exactly what was going on.

And with regard to the 'completely wrong' statement - why were players made to sign contracts with another organisation if that organisation wasn't taking over the franchise? (That's a genuine question rather than me trying to be wriggle out).

At the end of the day - players should sign contracts with the football 'club' itself, then it doesn't matter what happens with ownership.

So if the players were contracted to B from Oct 13 - July 14 (When they signed back to A), does this mean that the Mariners games from Oct 13 - July 14 results don't count as they were using unregistered players in every game?

Because as far as I can see if they were using "unregistered" players as this seems to suggest then they should be taken from the ACL Playoff and replaced with Melbourne Victory right?

My take on this whole thing is that if you ignore the whole change in ownership/non-change in ownership saga, McG is a contracted Mariners player. 

We tried to sign him off the back of a legal loophole.  You could argue that both the Nix and the Mariners are just doing what they should be (Nix trying to sign what they thought was a free agent, Mariners trying to keep hold of a contracted player).

While I expect this will get sorted between the clubs at some point, my biggest concern is the workings of the FFA with the lack of transparency about the Mariners ownership and how its all being played out.  If the PFA thought that the Mariners players were contracted to "B" rather than "A", then you can bet the players did as well.  Surely it's unacceptable for the FFA to allow this ownership transfer to drag on for such a long period of time especially with players being asked to sign multiple contracts/letters of variation.

Doubtless an exception will be made for CCM. or some other extremely dodgy loop hole will be found. More BS.

And there it is. 

That's a bit restrained for football: Can you make it more sweary?

deleted. too grumpy.

I read in today's Dompost that we are supporting McGlinchey financially. Good stuff from the club but CCM should be doing that. If his old contract still stands then as soon as his loan deal is terminated he is a CCM player and should be paid by them. If CCM refuse to pay him then shouldn't McGlinchey sue?

Well that is interesting. A letter dated 23 Oct 2013 says the ownership of CCM transferred on 18 Oct 2013. 

But the arbitration stated that the licence was still in the old company. So something happened between October and now regarding ownership, but the PFA weren't told. And they weren't given an answer by the FFA according to their statement.

So it seems that WeeMac, the PFA, and the Phoenix got legal advice based on this incorrect information.

All this then raises the issue about what club the players are signed to, and what entity played in the A-league and in the ACL. 

They're just going to make this up as they go along. 

Interesting that McGlinchey only went to Japan in December 2013 as well. 

I suspect Charlesworth was going to transfer the ownership and license to his own company, and had advised FFA and PFA and approached players to sign new contracts with the new entity.  However that was not fully completed - the license transfer did not take place and McG was outstanding.  Charlesworth thought better of it, told players that their contracts remained with the old entity after all and recovered any of the signed new contracts.  He simply took financial ownership of the old entity.

Meantime McG had arranged his release from Japan and his deal with the Nix based on the understanding of a change of ownership and being a free agent.

The question for me is, why, in other cases, has a change of ownership required new player contracts and a transfer of FFA license, whereas this time Charlesworth seems to be getting away without either.  It looks like FFA have not kept control of the situation and Charlesworth has run rings around them.  

While the Arbitrator has found McG still belongs with the Mariners, what it has done is potentially uncover something rather more dodgy with how the Mariners have been managed in the past year.

I think it is in the Central Coast Mariners best interests now to fully reveal the details of the 'Change' of ownership. Keeping quiet on this just raises rumors that there is something they're hiding (damned them if there is something btw) as i think the potential ramifications for them could be rather larger than what McG is worth to them.

i.e. why would MC come out and blast PFA? Didn't they want to keep McG in the first place? I think theres much more to this than just the disputed transfer of a player. 

I hope they're not receiving all the protections of the corporate veil without accepting the drawbacks.

Come on I think we can trust the President of Cuba!

PFA seem keen to come on the podcast this week. 

Apparently Mariners owe the Gosford council 300k and will not be let into Bluetoungue until its repaid.

WeeMac's contract buyout surely wouldn't be enough to cover that amount!

Good on them though - Pay your bills or GTFO! 

**Double post, sorry!**

Just caught up on the last 3 days of posts in this thread. 

This thing is MENTAL.

What is happening at CCM, and more importantly the FFA?

Crazy goings on.

Just the usual at the FFA.

It certainly seems like that's what happened.

I think the Mariners players signing for the new entity and then signing back to the old one is a total red-herring. In general, you can't sign a contract with a legal entity that doesn't exist, and/or more specifically to this case, you can't sign an A-League player contract with an entity that doesn't hold a license to play in the A-League. So if the players did sign new contracts it looks like they were totally worthless.

That also puts to rest the "Mariners only have one contracted player" line.

The unanswered questions are more to do with whether the Mariners are currently paying McG and if not, why not? Also, why are they still saying they don't expect him back until Jan 1 if his loan to Vegalta Sendai is finished?

Also, what is actually going on with the transfer of ownership to Charlesworth? Is it legitimate and consistent with other such transfers?

There still seems to be something very murky happening in the background with both the transfer of ownership and the ending of McG's loan.

I notice you didn't even try answering the question.

I also wouldn't get too smug there Midfielder.

The limit of the downside for the Nix in this is that we don't get to sign one player.

The potential downside for the Mariners is that the ownership of your club and all your player contracts are possibly open to question. All your players will be unsettled by this and Mr Charlesworth has already shown himself to be someone with some interesting ideas about how to run a football club.

Despite what you may think CCM has probably always been the one club the everyone associated with the Nix most aspires to emulate. We certainly wish you no ill-fortune but that respect from over here might be fading slightly.

It does provide for a rich mine of wind up material though:

The question is where does wee Mac go from here. Gareth does not strike me as the sort of guy who would want to pay compensation when he thought he would have him for free. I don't think the Mariners really would want him back now but out of principle wont let him go for free. Whilst his time in Japan was not a success I wouldn't be surprised if a club from china made an offer and Wee Mac had to end up going there to continue his career.

You do realise Gareth Morgan isn't the only one who owns and makes decisions at the club right?

CSL and China One finishing up in November.  Don't think Central Coast Knob Ends would be waiting around that long for someone to take him off their pay role?

The FFA should pick up his wages now, as their man says he is a CCM player. At least until an appeal is lodged, or the correct action From FFA and free FreeWeeMac transfer.  FFA said .... FFA did.... Then FFA didn't do....... FFA don't do. .. FFA said he's theirs....... PFA hung out to d.......

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/10426078/Phoenix-await-lowdown-from-FFA-on-McGlinchey

"Phoenix general manager David Dome said he was seeking further information from the FFA regarding Central Coast's ownership and licence to play in the 2014-15 A-League."

Surely the big question needs to be aboout who held the licence for the 2013-2014 A-League?

Questions I have about the timeline:

1) What date did the FFA inform PFA that the license had been changed?

2) What date did the Players sign to NewCo?

3) What date did the Players sign BACK to OldCo? (Need to ask this, because otherwise why did players have to sign something new in July?)

4) If OldCo held license for 2013/14 season, which players were owned by OldCo, and if the players as per answer to 2 were contracted to NewCo, but license held by OldCo does this remove them from the ACL qualification due to unregistered players taking part?

5) If Players were contracted to OldCo & OldCo also held the license, then why were they asked to sign new contracts in Oct? And again in July?

I have many more, but I think this covers my questions around the contracts, licenses etc.

On the wages stuff I'm not sure we can be so emphatic.

It's totally plausible that when the loan ended WeeMac was cashed up to the end of the period (January). So he may have been paid for today already.

What happens after the loan period is up for grabs of course, but iirc the standard player contract does provide for suspension of pay if a player doesn't turn up to work. 

Yeah surely Sendai had to buy him out. Maybe not full wages but a decent chunk.

Normally in this case McGlinchey would have accepted a partial payout, if Sendai were the ones wanting to terminate the loan, thinking that he is a free agent and thus able to sign a new deal asap. If McGlinchey was the one wanting out, he may have been prepared to terminate the loan without (much of a) payout if he thought he could be signed to a new deal asap. Though, I still don't know how CCM were not part of any of these discussions.

That's very plausible. Good thinking.

Yeah, it all depends on who was paying McG while on loan.

If Sendai were paying him directly then as soon as it became obvious both parties wanted to terminate the loan Sendai pay him out the rest of what he's owed (or part of) and he's free to go - he thinks as a free agent, CCM think back to them (although only after Jan 1 for some reason).

If CCM were still paying McG and Sendai were paying CCM all or part of his wages then Sendai would presumably needed to pay CCM something to terminate the loan, so that CCM weren't unexpectedly out of pocket. In this case it's even harder to understand why CCM wouldn't expect McG back immediately.

Could it be that there is actually some kind of two-part loan arrangement here, where Vegalta Sendai and CCM didn't actually have a direct agreement? So CCM had an arrangement with McG where he can go until Jan 1 2015  and they won't pay him until then (which he thought ended early with the change of ownership) and then McG has a separate agreement with Sendai to play for them? (which is now terminated). That's the only way the current situation could really make any sense, but it all sounds dodgy as fuck.

"How dumb are those Kiwi's, must of forgotten me" - Con "The Driver" Boutsianis

"Baby you can drive my car

Yes you're gonna be a star

And maybe we'll love you

Beep beep'm beep beep yeah!"

www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7dkn1ZnIpk

That 1 Jan time is a bit weird if McGlinchey had a substantial amount of his remaining contract in Japan paid out - he could go back to CCM and whatever they had worked out for him to fit under the cap from Jan 1 could be spread over the course of the season and have no cap problems (even if CCM made up the difference of what McGlinchey was paid out and what he would have earned it would put them under less pressure than having to find cap space for his full wages).