My Latin isn’t as good as yours. I’m not even sure that is Latin.

I’m not a legal expert but I believe It’s not plausible at all if you are in the UK. Correct me if I’m wrong on this.

Out of court settlements are common to resolve disputes about employment, business contract disputes and so on here but to avoid being prosecuted for sexual assault I’m not so sure. I think even if such a thing was agreed financially if evidence a crime has occurred then CPS can still make a Decision to prosecute. If you look at the Caroline flack case the victim didn’t want to charge her after the incident but the CPS did it anyway because a crime clearly had occurred that had police involvement

It’s absolutely common in the US so look at ronaldo for example his lawyers did one, R Kelly, Michael Jackson Weinstein etc but I’m not sure here. Like I said though I’m no legal expert

Afternoon Top Gun. That makes sense and I'm glad to hear it. The US system is crazy. The system is skewed enough towards wealth people without legalising what is essentially corruption as well. Their campaign finance system is as bad.

"Way on down south, London Town" Enjoy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0RV0kgdqJU

With age comes wisdom

(Although possibly not in all cases )

Surely there’s a big difference in a case where the victim says she doesn’t want to proceed and a women who previously accused a partner of rape later changing her mind and admitting the sex was consensual? If she says that, what can be done to prove she’s lying? Even if the receipt of money can be proven, would that alone now be enough if she’s saying the sex was consensual?

She would get a stiff warning about wasting police time. I’ve no doubt about that. But how can the charges not be dropped?

You have skewed off a tangent where you are talking about motivations and evidence. Rather than the original question about why people dont settle of of court for something like this in the UK. I’ll leave it here

How have I skewed off on a tangent? If a woman who initially makes an accusation of rape changes her mind to now say the sex was consensual, how can there be a case to answer? It will surely be dropped?

Afternoon Top Gun. It seems to me that what happens in the US is basically legalised witness tampering. I hope youi are right that is it not done/legal in the UK

Even if that isn't happening (legally or otherwise) in the UK, I think it is rare for prosecutions to proceed with rape or assault charges where the victim is not pressing the charges, because it is very hard to get a conviction when the victim won't testify, unless there is sufficient other evidence (which there often is not in such cases). Forcing a victim to testify (or face contempt or perjury charges) would be pretty $@$*#y.

True it’s probably rare but this is the point the victim can still change their mind and press charges later even if you paid them off, if you pay someone off they can still pursue you later and provide any reason they want. Essentially a crime has been committed. Trust me if these settlements were common place we would be having a lot less by elections

Look at the bill wyman thing. Questioned by police about his relationship with Mandy smith when she was 14 and then he married her later. Damn sure she didn’t want anything to do with that happening.

You can buy peoples silence but I’m not sure that agreement still prevents legal conviction here hence it doesn’t happen if they change their mind further down the road. Different to US

I understand that in the US, NDAs are not binding in cases where there are illegal acts. The problem is that if the finding is 'not guilty' then an illegal act is deemed not to have been committed and a whistleblower or victim can be sued for breach of contract. Plus they always have better lawyers than you. It doesn't exactly encourage people to speak out, which is precisely the intended effect.

What about cases where there are attempts to intimidate or bribe the accuser?

Exactly but I don’t think it matters anyway.

End of the day if the evidence exists and the CPS are confident a crime has been committed they will pursue it regardless if someone made then dropped a complaint and changed their mind again. There’s no time limit here and I don’t think out of court settlements would even be a consideration

Surely that would be way easier to prove because the victim would not have been will to be bribed and intimidated, by giving evidence, than a woman who suddenly changes her mind and says the sex was now consensual.

€67m is the total cost of the deal Man U are paying to take Martinez from Ajax. He looks a fine player but we can’t be paying that for a player who potentially wouldn’t start when everyone in our team is fit

Comes out at £57m, £22m more than the reported total fee for Zinchenko who covers the same positions minus CB (which always seemed like the least important part of Martinez game from an Arsenal perspective). I really like Martinez profile, but that's a significant difference. Close to the price being reported for Tielemans on its own.

and I think our first bid was around £30m I'd have been amazed if we'd have nearly doubled it to get him. Even if we had it seems likely that he would have chosen Man U. Previous manager, likely able to offer a bigger wage and even his current Director of football (Van der Sar) was pushing for it to be Man U he went to.

There are a few odd transfer rumours being banded around now.

Arthur from Juve has cropped up again today. Never really understood our interest in him even in January, although he is another Brazillian to add to the collection.

Leroy Sane from Bayern. Not sure he's the same player he was before his injury at City. Can't see that one at all, way too expensive despite having worked with Arteta at City.

Hi Rich,

Zinchenko is a much more sensible buy. PL proven and can play in midfield as well as CB, that makes him more valuable for what we need I think. Very underrated footballer and the perfect age.

Exactly. With age comes wisdom.

It would have made no sense from our position. I am also encouraged by Man Utd's transfer activity. That is two players from the Dutch league and their main transfer target is De Jong. Now, De Jong is excellent, but it isn't exactly inspired thinking from Ten Hag.

Not necessarily it would seem.

I see Sane a little bit like Gnabry (though the latter is better in my opinion) - excellent players that would improve us, but neither of them are that guy you break your wage structure for in our position. Sane is reportedly on somewhere aroundd £300k per week, and I can imagine Gnabry's new contract is somewhere around there too. As talented as they are it just wouldn't be worth it, we're not talking prime Messi here.

The occasional hit or miss at times.

Can’t see either of them happening. Assuming zinchenko joins signing sane would push our spending to 160-170 million. That’s pretty unprecedented even if we sold some players to recoup some cash and even then we wouldn’t have signed a midfielder.

Arthur a possibility but that seems to be journalists speculating because he’s been left out of the juve tour. If we signed him also our spending would have reached abramovich levels

You mean in here or just generally ?

Don’t forget we spent about £150m last summer on White (£50m), Ødegaard (estimates £30m-£34m), Ramsdale (£30m), Tomiyasu (£16m), Lokonga (£15m) and Tavares (£7m). Okay we sold Willock but this summer we’ve sold Guendouzi (albeit way too cheaply) and presumably will sell the likes of Leno, Torreira, Bellerin, Mari, Pépé, Nelson and possibly even Maitland-Niles (or at least we’d like to).

With football inflation (prices have gone up in the last year), I’d say our expenditure last summer was at least comparable to our intended outlay this summer.

Got it in one Dec ... exactly what I said to my son
every time that f**&&%% little w*** k that poses as our half back sticks his leg back at that acute angle and telegraphs to the whole world he is going to kick .....I start swearing , throwing rum bottles , beer cans , chip packets at the TV ... ""DO NOT KICK IT YOU STUPID LITTLE F***CK "".
but of course he does , he gets f****ck all distance and then it's all hands to the pump as we defend for the next ten minutes .

The two Barretts should be strung up by the balls as well for doing the same . Complete lack of a plan B C or D .
The coach should never have got the job in the first place .
Be a nice time to get rid of our flaky captain Sam Cane as well .

In truth I only watched about fifteen minutes ... the Irish sin bin for the head clash bordered on lunacy as did the sending off the week before ..
The video refs and maxi officialdom are killing the game in my opinion , the officials are more centre stage than the players .

Chelsea wanting £30m+ for Broja….and it seems like a few prem clubs are interested. Shows how good a deal we got for Jesus I think.

It also shows the general set up in the club is a mess, where is the scouting list irrespective of manager, where is the director of football putting in to place the vision?

Hi Rich,

Dutch players have not been a huge success in the PL in recent years. The likes of Depay, Blind, Bergwijn, for example, have not exactly been a roaring success.

That's not to say Martinez couldn't do really well, its just a big step-up from the Dutch league to the PL, especially if United are playing him as a CB. How many 5'9" CBs have we seen in the PL? Not many. I'm not even sure he's as big as that, in a picture next to Messi he looked shorter than him but I think it may have been the camera angle.

Hi Haz,

I don't watch Bayern but my impression was that since leaving City Sane has been pretty average and certainly no worldbeater. I thought he struggled to even get in Bayern's team in the early days but maybe he's picked up in the last season or so.

You mean the rumours that just won't go away about Kiwi having a sex change operation and Bernard joining Bananarama?

Both true, according to my sources.

I was pretty impressed by Rory McIlroys comments after the British open.

With the latter, if only. With Bananarama having made a far more important contribution to distinguished music than the likes of Beethoven, Mozart, Bacharach, Dylan, Lennon & McCartney, Bowie.

Is he a golfer then? Thought he was a jockey. What did he say?

Ooh the black away kits nice.

Which the youngest son will want with 3 and Tierney on the back.. at a total cost of 71 quid prior to Arsenal wearing it no more than 3 times this season even when there’s an obvious clash then putting on discount for 45 quid in March 2023 before announcing a new one in July 2023 that he’ll want with 3 and Tierney on the back that will now cost 75 quid that we will wear 3 times …..


… it’s an episode of westworld. Weird things keep cropping up that feel familiar

Got it 2 weeks ago in Turkey. (£10)

Hi Soc,
I understand ten Hag raiding his former club and dutch players in general, but he's at one of the wealthiest clubs in the world who would likely back him - the amount of players available to him would be absolutely vast compared to his time at Ajax but yet that is still where he chooses to do his shopping. Even Eriksen is a former Ajax player.
Surely 99% of managers in the world would have their 'if only I had more money and was at a bigger club' list of players they would love to buy. It would seem strange that when you get that chance you don't take it.

All remains to be seem how good or bad those signings are though, I've spent many a pre-season with thoughts on the quality of transfers only to be proven quite wrong

Westworld was a good film, or was there a television series as you said ‘episode’? Yul Brynner had a major part in it. Seen it a number of times. Saw a follow up a few weeks ago called Futureworld. Yul Brynner was in that as well, albeit with not quite as big a part as he had in Westworld. Futureworld is a very long way from being the worst film I’ve ever seen. But I much preferred Westworld.