dkw Posted March 13, 2008 Posted March 13, 2008 http://www.guardiannewsngr.com/sports/a ... ext%20week JUDGMENT on the long running transfer saga involving Morgan Anderson, the former director of Norwegian club, Lyn Oslo, and Manchester United, on one hand, and Nigerian midfielder, John Mikel Obi, and his club, Chelsea of England, on the other will be delivered by a Norwegian court on March 13. i wonder if this has anything to do with mikels absence lately? plus another £16 million in the kitty would be nice. especially getting it of the mancs....
abramovich Posted March 26, 2008 Posted March 26, 2008 http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/socc...0487/index.html Former Lyn director convicted of fraud in contract dispute over Chelsea star Mikel OSLO, Norway (AP) -Former Lyn team director Morgan Andersen was convicted of fraud and making false accusations by an Oslo court Wednesday in a case that stemmed from a contract dispute over Chelsea midfielder John Obi Mikel. Andersen appealed on the spot. The Oslo district court sentenced Andersen to one year in prison, but suspended the sentence if he successfully complete a two-year probation period. It also ordered him to pay 20,000 kroner (US$3,875, ?2,500) in court costs. Andersen was convicted of two counts of tampering with a 2005 contract between the Oslo soccer club he then managed and Mikel so he could use the document in a lucrative sale of the now 20-year-old Nigeria star to Manchester United. He was also convicted with filing a false police complaint against Mikel's agent, John sh*ttu. Mikel ended up with Chelsea after the three clubs reached a settlement in the contract dispute "The court is convinced that the accused has knowingly contributed to an illegal act for gain an unjustified right to John Obi Mikel, " the ruling said. On Feb. 11, when the 10-day trial, opened, Andersen pleaded not guilty to all the charges. The prosecutors had demanded that Andersen be sentenced to one-year in prison, and serve half the time in jail. Andersen's attorney, Cato Schiotz, said his client completely disagreed with the sentence, and would appeal. "We believe the court did not consider all the questions,'' said Schiotz. During Among other things, the defense argued during the trial that one of Andersen's subordinate's at Lyn had falsified the contract without his knowledge. The three-member judges panel was split on the sentence, with one judge wanting Andersen to serve six months in jail. However, the other two supported a suspended sentence and probation. Andersen was convicted of tampering with existing contracts to make it appear that Mikel had signed them on his 18th birthday, April 22, 2005, as the first day the soccer player could enter a contract on his own as an adult. Such a contract would have given Lyn rights to Mikel that could have led to a lucrative deal with Manchester United. In 2005, Mikel filed a police complaint against Andersen claiming he had forged Mikel's signature on the contract. Andersen then filed a counter-complaint against sh*ttu, saying he had forged Mikel's signature on a different contract. Both complaints were later retracted, but police continued their investigation independently. Andersen became manager of Fredrikstad in 2006, but has been on sick leave from that job since October. His defense attorney, Schiotz, said his client would now step down from that job.
Gem Posted March 26, 2008 Posted March 26, 2008 Surely this isn't bad news for Chelsea? If it was, it would be splashed out all over the newspapers.
dkw Posted March 26, 2008 Author Posted March 26, 2008 as far as i can tell, it can only mean good news for chelsea. he should have signed for us at 18 but lyn oslo forged a contract and sold him to utd. therefore we should get all our money back because lyn had no right to sell him. but i have no doubts that the media will somehow turn this around and blame us for enslaving mikel or something equally as ridiculous.
abramovich Posted March 26, 2008 Posted March 26, 2008 http://www.thefootballnetwork.net/main/ ... 127126.htm Morgan Andersen, former director of Norwegian club Lyn, was given a 1 year suspended jail sentence in Oslo this week for forging his club’s contracts with John Obi Mikel 3 years ago. This sentence will now almost certainly invalidate what Man Utd claimed to be a legal transfer and also the 12 million pound payment from Chelsea to release the player from the 1 year limbo in which he found himself. Prior to 2005, Chelsea had been paying for Mikel´s education and development at Lyn Oslo whilst he was on amateur contract with them and had an agreement that the player, when 18 would sign for the London club. Suddenly, Man Utd triumphantly announced that they had secured the players signature just days after his 18th birthday even though the player himself said that he had been pressured into signing the contract and that Lyn Oslo had arranged the signing without the player’s agent being present. Chelsea were baffled by the sudden about turn and hotly contested the transfer. The player refused to move to Manchester United and went into hiding. The media were unable to locate the player and the football world was awash with preposterous stories of evil Chelsea and Abramovich henchmen kidnapping the player and even threatening the boy’s family! Man Utd fans flooded the web with how bad Chelsea FC were bad for football and that Abramovich was mafia, other clubs fans and especially Arsenal fans ecstatically jumped on the popular anti-Chelsea bandwagon and pontificated their views from the false moral high ground they created for themselves and spewed forth about the devil’s spawn which is Chelsea - Turns out that Lyn Oslo forged the professional contracts they had with Mikel so that they could suddenly sell him to Man Utd! Mikel had always denied signing these contracts but that didn’t really matter to the anti-Chelsea footballing world. Andersen had apparently cut, pasted and photo-copied the players signature from the amateur contracts to the professional ones! "The court is in no doubt the contracts were amended and Andersen knew this," said Judge Torjus Gard said in his judgement. With the legal entanglement, Man Utd´s refusal to accept that the transfer was illegal and the player now 1 year without playing, Chelsea arrived at the only solution of releasing the player from his hell by stumping up 4M to Lyn and a total of 12M to Man Utd payable over 2 seasons. Andersen’s made various false claims in the media: "It was like meeting the Sopranos! In the meeting they behaved in a threatening way. We [Lyn] claimed we had the rights to Mikel but sh*ttu said we would regret the deal and Chelsea's representatives didn't agree. Soon after, sh*ttu took Mikel to the airport in Oslo and on to London. Mikel was crying and we didn't see him for a long time after that." Course it was like that mate! That’s why you had to falsify the contracts wasn’t it! The Chelsea payments were eagerly seen as some kind of admission of guilt by the media and oppo fans alike – HOW SMALL THEY MUST FEEL NOW! But will they come out and retract their earlier hysterical anti-Chelsea comments? Of course they won’t! And this just about sums up the kind of people they really are. Svein Holden, a Norwegian public prosecutor bringing the case against Andersen has argued for the settlement to be cancelled on the grounds that Mikel's contract with Lyn was invalid and that therefore the player was available as a free agent. Certainly Chelsea will now move to recoup all or most of the 12M paid to Manchester United but it is understood that the Norwegian government have seized or will be in the process of seizing the 4M paid by Chelsea to Lyn Oslo as these are funds obtained by criminal activity. Andersen says he will appeal the decision – if an appeal takes place this could take another 6 months before financial matters are resolved. Andersen is now on leave from his job as director of another Norwegian club, Fredrikstad, but his lawyer Cato Schioetz told the Norwegian media that he “would probably not be able to return to that position” after the court ruling.
evissy Posted March 27, 2008 Posted March 27, 2008 Ok, so the only criminal here is that dude in Lyn, who is going to jail. So what do you people think will happen? Will we get our 4 Mill back from Lyn? We will not get our money back from ManU that is for sure. If something like that was to happen the FA and FIFA and UEFA and English government, EU, Nigeria, Norway and bunch of other organizations would make some rule not to give Chelsea their money back .
TomP Posted March 27, 2008 Posted March 27, 2008 With that verdict, by rights we should get 4 mil back from Lyn AND 12 mil back from Man U. What they are saying is that the only contract that Mikel ever legitimately singed with Lyn was as a youth player, which expired when he turned 18. They are saying that the professional contract with Lyn that was in effect between his 18th birthday and when he signed a contract with Chelsea was illegitimate - so when he signed with us, he was technically a free agent (didn't have any valid contract with anyone) - so neither Lyn nor Man U had any right demanding compensation for us to break a contract. I hope that Roman has a 12 mil invoice sitting on Fergie's desk right now.
loz Posted March 27, 2008 Posted March 27, 2008 I wasn't so sure Tom, From what I intepreted it meant he had no contract with Lyn meaning, as you say, that he was a free agent however he did sign a contract with Utd (although granted he claims it was under duress) and as far as I know there is no dispute that he signed it. So that would mean he did have a contract with Utd and therefore they would be due compensation.
TomP Posted March 28, 2008 Posted March 28, 2008 My understanding was that it was one and the same contract that Mikel ""signed"" on his 18th birthday - i.e. Contract that allowed him to play professionally for Lyn, player registration held by Lyn (so not loaned), but ultimately owned by Man United, who could then sign him for nothing whenever they want. The same type of contract that we (allegedly) had with PSV for Alex. My understanding of the controversy was that we already had an agreement for exactly the same type of contract to be signed between Mikel, Lyn and Chelsea, which was organised through his agents a year or so before all of this happenend. Nothing could be signed before his 18th birthday though, so it was only ever a verbal agreement. On his 18th birtday, this contract with Man U appeared out of the blue, and Mikels agents were supposedly sacked, and we were understandably pissed off.
loz Posted March 28, 2008 Posted March 28, 2008 You may be right Tom which would obviously shine a different light on things. It as clear as Rio's urine sample would have been had he not 'forgotten' to show up for the test.
Taipan Posted March 28, 2008 Posted March 28, 2008 I wasn't so sure Tom,From what I intepreted it meant he had no contract with Lyn meaning, as you say, that he was a free agent however he did sign a contract with Utd (although granted he claims it was under duress) and as far as I know there is no dispute that he signed it. So that would mean he did have a contract with Utd and therefore they would be due compensation. Mikel did sign a contract with United. The validity of that contract is hotly disputed, but it hasn't been tested in court. It is disputed because: 1. Mikel's agent was excluded from the process by Andersen - the guy who forged the contract; 2. Andersen was pressuring Mikel to sign for United. He had a lot to gain from Mikel signing the United contract. So much so that he resorted to criminal behaviour to make that happen. But even if the United contract was upheld United are not in a great position. They would have a contract with Mikel, but there is no way they could get his registration without benefiting from Lyn's forgery. To get his registration transferred the Norwegian FA need to get an okay from Lyn that there are no contractual issues - and Lyn couldn't do that without lieing and forgery. Having a contract with a player but no registration is of no use to them. He could never play for United, and they could never transfer him to another club. United could have signed him as a free agent - as we intended to. But they didn't. They paid Lyn 4 million to secure his registration, but Mikel's registration was never Lyn's to sell. Chelsea then paid United 12 million to secure that registration. Despite their [hotly disputed] contract with Mikel the only way United had the registration was as a direct result of forgery so I don't believe they are entitled to keep the cash. Here is the thread on the issue on redcafe: link
abramovich Posted April 1, 2008 Posted April 1, 2008 Former Lyn director drops appeal of fraud conviction in contract dispute over Chelsea star Mikel http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/s ... index.html
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