Iain Dowie / Crystal Palace Legal Action

The Brigadier

IAIN DOWIE has never been the sort of man to shy away from a fight and today he came out swinging. After Simon Jordan accused him of lying his way out of the Crystal Palace manager's job. he has thrown his first retaliatory punch.
In an extraordinary defence of the fraudulent misrepresentation charge he is set to face at the High Court, the 41-year-old has offered a version of events which will win his former chairman few friends.

Papers lodged in court accuse Jordan of using tactics of abuse, aggression and vulgarity to attack Dowie's achievement at Palace and encourage him to resign.
The former striker, now in charge at bitter rivals Charlton, denies he asked to leave the club so he could get a job nearer his family home in the North, and then some.
He claims Jordan forced him out of the club by trying to undermine him and treating him unreasonably in an attempt to "avoid the need to 'pay up' Dowie's remaining contractual entitlements."

These would have included two years of his £500,000 salary plus his entitlement of five per cent of any net profit from transfer fees Palace received for their players.
The bonus was apparently designed to reward Dowie for deveb oping players and he claims this would have earned him £500,000 if he had stayed this summer. Both elements were waived in a compromise agreement in which Palace also apparently cancelled a compensation clause in his contract. Dowie's argument is that less than 24 hours after Palace were knocked out of the play-offs by Watford, Jordan told him the season had been a "disaster" and that changes that would he made.

In addition to criticisms of the team as a whole. their character and playing styles, in a 90-minute phone call Dowie also alleges that players were singled out.

Jordan said: "Don't mention (Ben) Watson and (Fitz) Hall to me. they have been a f**cking massive disappointment and will not be top f**king players."

Hall has recently been sold to Wigan but Watson, an England under-21 international, is still at the club and it remains to be seen how the allegations of the chairman's attacks on the team effects morale. In the same conversation, Dowie claims Jordan told him he would have to sell players if he stayed in charge and cut budgets.

A £250.000 gym upgrade would also have to be scrapped and the manager would no longer he able to claim his £250 weekly flights home to Holton as club expenses.
Dowie's defence additionally says that the chairman said he wanted to he "more involved" in the day-to-day running of the team and to sit down with the manager after each game and review a video of it.

He refused and told Jordan to take his coaching badges if he wanted to be a manager.

At the end of their call on 10 May the manager was apparently told to "reflect on his future", and when they next spoke a week later they agreed to part company
Bowie said: "I was staggered by the vitriol and the contempt for the job I had done at the club."

His defencepapers claim that in the conversation Jordan: "Deliberately set out, in an abusive. aggressive, vulgar and demeaning manner, to attack Dowie's achievements." He also "deliberately set out to encourage Dowie to resign." according to the evidence.

The Charlton manager admits that he mentioned missing his family and asking Jordan to allow him to talk to clubs in the North if they asked for permission.
Portsmouth were denied the chance to approach Dowie last season, but he claims he agreed to leave Palace because of the "constraints" and "changes" that Jordan promised.

He denies talking to Charlton until he had left the Selhurst Park club. and in evidence suggests that Billy Davies, then of Preston, had been offered the job at The Valley before, he was even interviewed.

Jordan's claims at the High Court, Dowie's defence says are "to disguise the real reasons for Dowie's departure and justify his actions to fans".

But if this sounds like open war-fare. it is only the beginning.

With claim and counter claim drumming up the legal bills and potential damages above E2 million for both sides, the wider interest within the game will focus on the relationship of manager and chair-man

If the case eventually gets to court it promises to draw several of the game's best-known names to the witness box as the characters of the main protagonists are exuminal. It promises to be some boxing match.

The above article is in todays Evening Standard in London. It is based on the defence Iain Dowie has presented against the writ served on him by Crystal Palace.

I have been discussing this with all my palace pals and we are all less than neutral in the whole situation.

Any thoughts on this?

WhiteWashMan

i always thought the palace chariman was a bit of a pratt tbh.
ive never been a big fan of dowie to be honest, but i have always regarded him as a man with integrety, and certainly not someone who would beat about the bush if he wanted to move on.

of course, i have no idea of all the facts, but my first instinct would be to go with what dowie says.

Necronomicon

I always liked Dowie, but imo he is in the wrong this time. His contract at Palace was ended by mutual consent, Simon Jordan did not want to leave him go but did because Dowie said he wanted to move somewhere closer to his family. Jordan therefore waved the 1 million pound compensation clause in his contract. Dowie then moved some 6 miles up the road to Charlton.

WhiteWashMan

well, was it closer to home or not?

The Brigadier

WhiteWashMan wrote:

well, was it closer to home or not?

Yes but a longer journey.

Necronomicon

WhiteWashMan wrote:

well, was it closer to home or not?

Well I'm not great on London geography, I don't know if Charlton is up the road from Selhurst Park or down the road, he might have moved 6 miles further away from Bolton

The Brigadier

He has moved further north (by about 6 miles or so) but he travels to Bolton by plane and Charlton is further away from an airport than Palace. (I am not including City Airport as you can't catch a suitable flight from there)