Swansea City compensation battle with Southampton continues as claims emerge

The Swans battle for what they believe they are entitled from Russell Martin’s departure to Southampton continued this week with us claiming that the Saints “tapped up” Martin and secured confidential details of his contract.

Almost twelve months on from the departure of Martin and less than a week after he secured an immediate Premier League return for Southampton through the back door of the play offs, the finalities of his move from SA1 last summer are still yet to be completed.

As reported back in April, the matter of compensation was due to end up in court with neither side seemingly prepared to move on their position as to how much it should secure to close the matter of the move made by Martin and his backroom staff last summer.

This week some of the details behind that court move were revealed with the Telegraph reporting that the Swans had lodged a request with the Premier League on “tapping up” with the claim being that Southampton had obtained confidential contract details about Martin in an attempt to secure a cut price move for him.

The Telegraph added that England’s top tier was not pursuing the case but the Swans continue to press ahead with suing our former manager as Southampton try and avoid paying the full £2m release clause.    It is claimed that it could have even been Martin directly who passed on the confidential terms in a bid to keep the costs down.

The battle still hinges over the technicality of whether the Saints were a Premier League or Championship club at the time they reached agreement with Martin.

The wording used by the claim is said to read “Mr Martin, and/or his agent acting on his behalf communicated with another football club that made an approach for his services whether directly or indirectly, without receiving permission in writing by the CEO” and that he “revealed to a third party confidential information namely the Release Sums and/or details of the Resigning Employees.”

The claim continues that the former Swans boss “did not act, whether through his own actions and/or those of an agent acting on his behalf, in the best interests of Swansea City”

The official appointment of Martin as Southampton boss came a week after the Premier League AGM which ratified the three promoted sides as Premier League sides and effectively ending Southampton’s tenure in the top division.   However, it was widely reported before the Premier League season ended that Martin and Southampton were likely to be a pairing for the following season.

“By reason of the factual foregoing, it is to be reasonably inferred that…. Without Swansea City’s knowledge or permission, Southampton FC approached Mr. Martin or persons acting on his behalf, such as his intermediary or agent, in order to induce him to leave his employment with Swansea City,” the claim says.

The Swans have never moved on the belief that they were owned full compensation for Martin and said back in last summer that they would “continue working diligently and strategically to protect the best interests of the club.”

It does appear that the situation of compensation for Martin will continue to rumble on for some time before agreement has been reached and, as referenced before, no party – Swansea, Southampton or Russell Martin himself – will come out of this with all their credit intact given the nature of mud slinging that is going on.   Both in and out of the public eye.

Of course the issue of tapping up in football is not an unusual one and it is probably likely that very few moves happen (both players and management) without details of contracts being known but with the Swans standing firm on that it was Russell Martin himself who engineered the move away from Swansea there seems very little movement will happen until someone relatively ‘neutral’ steps in and reaches the decision that will close the matter off.