Derby sack captain Keogh

I’m no lawyer but surely there is a case for unlawful dismissal here. Few things don’t seem right to me...

1. Keogh, as far as I am aware, didn’t actually commit a criminal offence/wasn’t arrested. The two lads who were arrested and charged haven’t been sacked.

2. Keogh is the oldest and least valuable of the players involved. The other two are worth several million in today’s market. Surely a person’s perceived worth can’t come into a sacking for gross misconduct?

3. They asked him to take a pay cut which again doesn’t sit right. Surely it’s either gross misconduct or it’s not? By suggesting a pay cut, surely Derby have opened themselves up to counter suing on the basis its not actually gross misconduct - otherwise why not just sack him outright?

While all that is true Keogh also signed a contract which said that he would play football for Derby County. Then while doing something incredibly risky and unrelated to his job, being driven by someone who is drunk, injured himself so that he can't fulfil his end of the contract. Derby were probably trying to be nice by offering him the deal and he said no.

You can look at it in a different light instead of through drunk driving, if he had deciding to go sky diving, another risky activity, and broke his leg while landing would you expect Derby County to have to pay his wages for the remainder of the contract? He put himself in a situation with a high risk of injury and because of it can't fulfil what he said he would do in his contract which I think makes Derby sacking him fair. The other two put themselves in the same situation but can still fulfil their end of their contracts by playing football for Derby so as they can still hold up their end they are still employed by Derby.
 
I said, directly, that once they broke contract it was up to the club to do as they please. As far as putting innocent lives at risk, normal behavior does that, just at a lower risk. As soon as you get in your car, you up the ante, sober or not. Drunk, the odds are much higher. Speeding? Same deal. You aren't punished for anything that doesn't happen. That said, they were punished for breaking the law, and as Tom Cato pointed out, there are a lot of mitigating circumstances involved in penalties for drunk driving. Just like speeding. And that's actually a good thing.

As for the club setting precedent, not really. This is just today's news. And it's not disproportionate - he got himself injured by his actions, they did not. Lucky for them? Sure, but to equate the two is not logical.

I bet this does fly in court, too, or the team's legal counsel would not have let them do it.

Got himself injured? He shouldn't have gotten in the car but one of them crashed into the other, causing his injury.

That's beside the point, the club has said he's been fired for gross misconduct. So my original question still stands.
 
This whole incident has created a very negative attitude towards the club from its own fans.

Most football fans I know support Derby and from day one all of them have called for all 3 players to be sacked.

What they have done and why they have done it is obvious. Keogh is no longer a valuable asset to Derby, the other 2 are. Unfortunately this should never have come in to it. For it to do so creates a very dangerous precedent for the younger players at the club.

People will say Keogh as captain should have done more, but there were plenty of other people that could have stepped in and he is not their dad.

How the 2 drunk drivers have ended up coming out of this better than a passenger is proving difficult to understand for the fans but since it occurred there has been a general consensus that some details have not emerged, however given that Keogh would appear likely to appeal his punishment I suspect a lot more will come out.
 
Got himself injured? He shouldn't have gotten in the car but one of them crashed into the other, causing his injury.

Yes, got himself injured. See ninjaskill's alternative scenario. The fact that he got into the car at all is not on them, it's on him. If you don't see it, you won't accept my answer and we are at an impasse.

That's beside the point, the club has said he's been fired for gross misconduct. So my original question still stands.

I answered that extensively. Results matter. They all broke contract, it's up to the club to do as they please. He can no longer offer them any value, the others can, and mitigating circumstances do matter.
 
I bet this does fly in court, too, or the team's legal counsel would not have let them do it.

Silly conjecture. The team's legal counsel is getting paid, regardless of how the case ends up in court. Them going forward is no indicator of how solid their case is, ask Cardiff
 
Um... I think you're being disingenuous because I disagreed with your other point to be perfectly honest and it's a bit petty.

We'll agree to disagree on the other points if you're going to take it to that level.

Ah, no. You're the disingenuous one here, because you don't like the outcome.

Here's the math:

If the contract is to pay out over 52 weeks, and they dock them 6 weeks pay, then they're only getting 46/52nds of their pay over the course of the year. Now, you can say potahto, I can say potayto, but that's a pay cut, whether it's in the form of a contractual drop in the amount per week, or a fine of 6 whole weeks of pay. That's not disingenuous, that's math.
 
So you're saying it isn't gross misconduct to break the law, and as a consequence putting the lives of innocent people at risk and actually causing an injury to a teammate which will keep him out of the game for 18 months but it is gross misconduct for Keogh to unwisely get in the car of a drunk driver purely because he ended up with said injury?

As others have said the club have set their own precedent with their treatment of the other two, and have disproportionately punished one player due to his age and injury. It won't fly in court and I'd be shocked if there wasn't an out of court settlement.

I suggest you read my long'ish comment on this whole debacle. I explain why the club fired Keogh, while they kept the other two. The punishment is not disproportionate as the situations are not the same. Might feel unfair but that's the reality.
 
Ah, no. You're the disingenuous one here, because you don't like the outcome.

Here's the math:

If the contract is to pay out over 52 weeks, and they dock them 6 weeks pay, then they're only getting 46/52nds of their pay over the course of the year. Now, you can say potahto, I can say potayto, but that's a pay cut, whether it's in the form of a contractual drop in the amount per week, or a fine of 6 whole weeks of pay. That's not disingenuous, that's math.

A fine is a one-off charge and the max they can be fined is 6 week's wages.

A pay-cut which wouldn't usually have a limit is a completely different thing. Apparently the pay-cut they suggested was quite severe. They could have reduced his wages from 24 grand a week to 1 for all we know.

So no, not the same thing at all.
 
While I sort of do understad the whole 'they should get sacked too' debate, I actually don't understand the sympathy Keogh gets here, this vibe that he's somehow a double victim here because he wasn't driving and got injured is pretty fecked up. He can get fecked in my book, it's his responsibility (just like it would be anybody else's) to stop a drunk from driving. Getting into the car with one is being accomplice.
 
While I sort of do understad the whole 'they should get sacked too' debate, I actually don't understand the sympathy Keogh gets here, this vibe that he's somehow a double victim here because he wasn't driving and got injured is pretty fecked up. He can get fecked in my book, it's his responsibility (just like it would be anybody else's) to stop a drunk from driving. Getting into the car with one is being accomplice.

No it is not. Both sentences are factually incorrect. It would be nice if he tried to stop the others from driving, but it's not his responsibility. Nor is he an accomplice in any crime, not by any decent law system.
 
No it is not. Both sentences are factually incorrect. It would be nice if he tried to stop the others from driving, but it's not his responsibility. Nor is he an accomplice in any crime, not by any decent law system.

Hence the 'in my book' prior to what you've bolded.
 
I think the issue you and a large chunk of (specifically our) fanbase fail to understand is that football players aren't just 'employees'. They're actual real assets, who cost a feck load of money to acquire & and can make the club money when they sell them. You're not just asking Derby to write off Lawrence and Bennet's transfer value, but also then spend an equivalent amount to replace them with equally good players. This is stupid and no business can reasonably expected to work that way.

Keogh is a negative asset because he hasn't got a transfer value anymore & he's going to be eating up a wage while not being available for a very long time.

Our fans have a big problem understanding this, which is why you hear dumb calls for squad culls every 6 months asking the club to get rid of players like at a charity shop.

just to clarify, like I did in another post, I understand why Derby have done it from a business sense. It is clear having a 1.3 million pound negative is not good for them in any way especially at his age and the nature of his injury.
 
I answered that extensively. Results matter. They all broke contract, it's up to the club to do as they please. He can no longer offer them any value, the others can, and mitigating circumstances do matter.
Since the player is now taking them to court, this is not exactly true is it? They're not in China or anything.
 
Could Derby argue that as the captain, Keogh failed completely in his duty to set a good example, and helped lead two of their younger players astray. Thus his punishment was greater because he was put in to a position of authority and abused that.

Apologies if that has already been mentioned here, just curious to see if that would work at all.
 
I suggest you read my long'ish comment on this whole debacle. I explain why the club fired Keogh, while they kept the other two. The punishment is not disproportionate as the situations are not the same. Might feel unfair but that's the reality.

I read that there and I agree that it will be settled out of court and I reckon both parties are playing hard-ball at the minute.

However, the contention that getting into a car makes you as liable as the driver or is technically a crime isn't correct. Keogh hasn't been charged with a crime and being a passenger to a drunk driver isn't considered a crime. The drink driver is solely responsible for the accident in these types of cases.

I do know that if a passenger of a drunk driver is attempting to claim for their injuries then they are considered to be responsible for contributory negligence and this can reduce their claim by 40% as far as I'm aware.
However, some people have gotten a full pay-out as they were too drunk to ascertain if the one offering the lift was sober enough to drive.

That brings me on to the gross misconduct which is the sticking point for me. If Keogh is legally at most 40% resonsible for his injuries, then the remaining 60% would surely fall on either/both of the other two. In that case I don't see how this would stand up as a reason for sacking him alone.

As I said I don't think it will ever get to court but it doesn't add for me.
 
I have to agree with @Tom Cato 's take on this.

also,


You seem to be missing that fact that because of his decision to take a ride with those he knew were intoxicated, he put himself into a position to get himself injured, and he did get himself injured, in such a way that he could not provide services for payment rendered. That contract is for footballing, not for anything off the pitch. If he'd sustained a career-ending injury on the pitch, this would be a different discussion. Even if he'd broken his leg walking across the street, and only out for a few weeks, they wouldn't have done this. But that's not the case. He's a player already at the end of his career, and he did something stupid off the clock that cost him his health for an extended period of time.

Too many here seem to believe the club owes him something for nothing. He put himself and them in this position. Yes, there's a contract. He broke it. It's up to the club to do as they please at that point.

On the other hand, the other two were not injured in spite of their bad choices. Those choices still cost them in the judicial system, but they are still capable of rendering service to the club. Yes, there's a contract. They broke it. It's up to the club to do as they please at that point.

You can call it hypocrisy if you want, but the two situations are not the same because of the results of the incident in which they were all involved, and the point in the careers of all involved.

You may be missing that he was totally blotto, and who knows if someone else ushered him into the car himself?

Yes a pro footballer shouldn't be getting boozy, but the club obviously allowed them to go out for "team building" so must have known footballers will drink. It's not outside of possibilities that he just went along with what happened, rather than being the ring leader just because he's captain on the pitch.

Derby trying to get him to take a wage decrease will be the massive thing that finds them out. Sacking him straight after is unsavoury, as it's either gross misconduct or it isn't. Allowing him to stay no problems, if he takes a financial hit was a plain bizarre move.
 
Not sure why people are focussing on the request for him to take a pay cut. It may well be very legitimate in the sense that was going to be part of his punishment however he refused and challenged, lost and was subsequently dismissed.
 
Keogh gave the club the option to enforce the standard termination clauses in his contract. They don't have to terminate, and they shouldn't have to apply the termination clauses consistently either in regards to others. If you're very important to any employee, you'll always have more leeway for difficult behaviour or personality than someone who can be easily replaced within a company. This is business in the real world, and I don't attribute it to discrimination.
 
Ah, no. You're the disingenuous one here, because you don't like the outcome.

Here's the math:

If the contract is to pay out over 52 weeks, and they dock them 6 weeks pay, then they're only getting 46/52nds of their pay over the course of the year. Now, you can say potahto, I can say potayto, but that's a pay cut, whether it's in the form of a contractual drop in the amount per week, or a fine of 6 whole weeks of pay. That's not disingenuous, that's math.
The mental gymnastics with this one. :lol:
 
It's not fair to ask Derby to write off millions of pounds by sacking the other two or expect to keep paying him while he's made himself unavailable because of his stupidity.
No sympathy for any of them. He deserved to be sacked, he should have been setting the example. The other two will hopefully learn from the incident.
 
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