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6 months ago
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An interesting new development now reported in the Dan Ashworth ongoing saga.
The Newcastle United Sporting Director who is now coming up to ten weeks on gardening leave and counting.
On Thursday night, the usually very reliable David Ornstein reporting (see below) that Dan Ashworth is taking Newcastle United to arbitration to speed up his move to Manchester United.
As things currently stand, the terms of Ashworth’s contract say that he can’t start a new job with a rival, not whilst Newcastle continue to pay his wages anyway, until January 2026.
That is unless Manchester United pay the amount of compensation Newcastle United want, in return for cutting the gardening leave short. Newcastle United having faced exactly the same situation in 2022. Compensation agreed with Brighton to allow Dan Ashworth to start work at St James’ Park in June 2022, rather than the far longer period of gardening leave his contract detailed.
This week though, the latest media reports had claimed that the two clubs were miles apart on compensation, with Newcastle United claimed to be still holding out for £20m, whilst Man U only willing to pay £2m.
Obviously arbitration is a very specialised field and David Ornstein not giving great detail on what kind of outcome can be expected, what Dan Ashworth is expecting / hoping will come of it.
You would assume that if indeed arbitration is used to settle this stand-off, we would see an outcome of compensation to be paid somewhere in between £2m and £20m, as well as the gardening leave shortened to a period less than the current 20 months it still has scheduled to run.
However, whatever happens, I would be amazed if any arbitration outcome, any compromise or whatever, would see Dan Ashworth able to start at Man U any time until at least after this summer 2024 transfer window has closed, as a bare minimum.
David Ornstein reporting for The Athletic – 25 April 2024:
‘Dan Ashworth is set to take Newcastle United to arbitration to help facilitate his move to Manchester United.
Ashworth, 53, was placed on gardening leave by Newcastle in February after informing the north east club he wished to explore the opportunity.
The Athletic reported before Newcastle’s decision that Ashworth had notified them of Manchester United’s approach to become sporting director at Old Trafford.
Newcastle were seeking as much as £20million in compensation but with [Man] United unwilling to meet that figure the matter is now on course to be decided by a third party. It is anticipated the case will start in May and take a number of weeks.’

 
