Sorry for the delay
@Tom Cato , had to move on from a petulant spat.
Anyway, onwards. . .
This has nothing to do with semantics. There is an enormous difference between employer oversight, and self imposed oversight. I know you think there isn't, but that's not the case.
If an employer ‘promotes’ a staff member to a position of seniority over a group then it is employer oversight in a middle management role.
If Harry Maguire is not a club representative then let’s scrap the role entirely.
The role will come with expectations from the squad, to manage up & board/management to manage down.
The squad doesn’t act in a silo aside the club, it is part of it; the club captain role is part of the hierarchy & rather blatantly a 2-way role.
There is indeed a stark difference between employer & self-imposed oversight. Maguire isn’t in charge of a stag-do.
I'll give you an example: Being late for training is something that will net you both a warning and/or a fine, it's noted in the players contracts and part of their employment. It's a direct negative impact on your contractual obligations.
I’ve highlighted contractual obligation previously so not sure about the point in this cause we agree.
Not showing up for a "special event" as invited by a teammate is still completely voluntary, but in the spirit of camraderie, not showing up for team building events now constitutes a fine that goes towards a charity. When being negative about this you should also consider that: These type of various self imposed fines are normal in sport clubs, football, hockey, baseball, etc etc. Everyone has them. The fines do of course not negatively impact the player, it's pocketchange. The gesture is merely symbolic.
‘
The fine is symbolic and will without a question go towards the Manchester United Foundation.’
You’ve leaped from assuming the money goes to charity to now definitively telling me it is - it’s by the by but you’re spouting your view as fact; you’ve no clue what happens with the money so it’s an irrelevant thread we’re now dwelling on.
If it’s all for charity anyway then get the squad together to generate a guaranteed figure for the Foundation.
It’d actually be worse if a player rocked up not wanting to pay the fine if the Foundation is the recipient.
"If it’s a ‘non-issue’ then why bother having a fine. It’s obviously an issue for Maguire." - It's not so much that its an issue for Maguire, as it places a framework around the social structure of the dressing room. Putting a framework around anything brings structure to it. Maguire is simply putting structure around the club's dressingroom. Again, its completely voluntary.
You’ve no clue of the framework of the dressing room or it’s social structure - it’s beyond nauseating how
informed people act based on a few sentences. An interview with Luke Shaw isn’t proof of anything regarding ‘the squad’ - we’re veering further & further from the problem you had with my initial post.
Luke Shaw mentioned get togethers were an issue under Young, for all we know the rest of the things he did were faultless.
"I’m not saying there’s a silent uproar because I don’t know but this steadfast “the whole squad are ok” is quite laughable as that isn’t known either." You're somehow making the assumption that this is a issue at all for the players. It's not. If someone can't attend a function, they can simply give notice, and that's the end of the story. You know, like normal people do anyway?
Again, overly
informed.
I’m making no assumptions. I’m calling the fine draconian & more so, ridiculing the fans that lap this up as some master stroke [refer to my first post again; I’m all for team bonding but it’s all for nothing if the performances on the pitch aren’t there.].
“if someone can’t attend a function; they can simply give notice”, we’re now discussing the intricacies of something we know nothing about - why are we discussing notice periods anyway, we’re drifting again.
According to the report first linked [I take anything published with a pinch of salt btw] ‘a handful’ of players missed the Mata event; so this ‘suggestion’ isn’t aimed at the majority anyway.
All I’ve done is asked people to reflect on their own situations & use those as a point of reference; - Absolutely. if my place of employment had a £5 "fine" for not attending a social gathering that was donated to a local charity, I'd be fine with that. You know, because none of the players are in financial distress and the sums youre talking about barely register in their bank accounts.
If only the rest of the world were as gracious as the Cafe we’d have no issues.
I don’t care how nominal a fine is, I think requiring people to attend “voluntary” functions in lieu of even a symbolic punishment is punitive.
‘
You know, because none of the players are in financial distress’, am I speaking to financier to the stars Tom Cato? . . . You can rather easily be paid thousands of £s a week & be in financial difficulties. Be it a youth player trying to keep up with the jones’ in the squad that are on more money or multiple other things. There are multiple reports of pro-athletes finding themselves in financial difficulties; it’s improbable but not impossible. It’s also again, irrelevant of my initial post.
Harry Maguire is not the clubs representative as you might think? Like.. why do you even think this? Harry Maguire is the players representative to the board and manager. Harry speaks the players cause, NOT the other way around.
See my earlier Maguire comments.
As our new captain, after a rather unsuccessful Ashley Young period, Maguire has my support - I’m just not wowed by the ‘My captain’ tripe. He’s obviously a top character but he’s [imo] some way from matching his ‘stellar’ reputation off the pitch with the performances on it.
