The9

I thought it was for trips to distant European capitals featuring the letter K, J or Z and very few vowels to watch rubbish international matches.

I'm sure the "hanger on" wishes he'd never been so gracious as to rent his property out to the new chairman of Saints in the first place now. Even if he did use the agreement as a way of potentially making himself a few hundred quid.

I think it's weird that anyone uses avatars, I set mine up to not display them when the site last changed template to add the blogs, and didn't even realise other people still had them until I viewed the site on someone else's iPad t'other week. Which btw is also why I don't have one.

You did well to pick that out of my epic reply. I see what you mean now, they may have had discussions but Cortese chose not to engage and to make him pursue it via litigation.

September 2010 for the case being brought then... sounds like you got banned for having multiple user names, "Deep Throat". The outstanding rent I can see is possibly a grand from Dec 2009 - where the £3500 paid to Benali is less than the minimum payment of £4k (irrespective of Cortese's £1k and the ambassador payments). Depends if Benali got £500 for his one ambassador appearance in Dec 2009 or not, or if he got stiffed on both that AND the rent that month. He's certainly got a grievance, whether it's to the tune of the amount he's claiming...

I'd be inclined to think that as the case has been brought by Benali, the Chairman's "choice" in the matter is non-existent - his role was to pay the appropriate costs and not give the landlord any reason to need or want to arbitrate. There's clearly a resistance to meeting what Benali believes is the original verbal deal : Savills said £6k rent was going rate. Although Benali says the rent was less than the going rate, he believed he had a deal where he would be getting the £6k minimum anyway, plus £500 extra every time he was a matchday ambassador after the second occurrence in a month : The Echo article reports the verbal agreement was that Saints paid £4,000 each month, with Cortese personally adding £1,000. "Additionally, it is claimed that an agreement was reached that would see the club employ Mr Benali as a matchday ambassador, paying him £500 per match, with a minimum total of £1,000 per month". He had to "work" a little bit for the amount Savills claim the place was worth, but it also gave him the chance to make a few quid on top if he was an ambassador more than twice in a month. Though there was also no indication that he couldn't have got the £500 an appearance ambassador job irrespective of the rental agreement, the fact Cortese/Saints quickly didn't use him suggests there was no demand for it and actually Franny had wangled himself an additional opening to earn £500 a time. Rental began in October 2009 (dates of rental don't appear to be in dispute, Oct 09 to Jul 10), no problems that month or November 2009. *In December 2009, instead of £4000 plus £1000 minimum ambassador fees and £1000 from Cortese, Benali is paid only £3500, prevented from accessing the ground to be an ambassador for 2 matches. Benali either got underpaid £1000 on the rent and paid £500 for the one ambassador appearance but not the £1000 minimum per month he was expecting, or he got underpaid £500 on the rent and got nothing for being an ambassador for that one match. Logically you have to think he got the £500 ambassador money but screwed on the rent that month. In the Jan 2010 renegotiation, Benali meets Cortese, there's now a written agreement removing the £1000 Cortese was to pay and adding it to the club payment, so the new agreement is £5000 - there is no mention in the report of the ambassador role or any minimum monthly payment being confirmed in writing. This is important, as Cortese never pays Benali more than £1000 and never allows him to earn more than £1000. * From Jan 2010 - July 2010 Benali was again prevented from performing his ambassadorial duties - once in January, once in February, and then for the whole months of March, April, May and June, "amounting to a further £7,000 in unpaid fees". I've broken down how the £7000 is reached below. What is clear is that Cortese decided by December 2009 that Benali wasn't needed for an ambassador role and didn't intend on paying above the minimum he could get away with. It's also clear Cortese didn't feel there was any £1000 minimum guarantee (or wasn't going to adhere to it) - If you only consider what Benali was paid for ambassador appearances : Oct 2009 - paid for 2 appearances (we only had 2 league matches and a midweek JPT for which it's unlikely an ambassador would be needed) Nov 2009 - paid for 2 appearances (again only 2 league matches and a midweek JPT) Dec 2009 - paid for 1 appearance ? Three home matches, prevented from accessing Tranmere and Exeter so only had 1 ambassador role - would explain why the payment was divisible by £500 - a single £500 payment for that one match only ? Jan 2010 - paid £1000 for first two appearances, locked out of making more appearances (would have been £500 more) Feb 2010 - paid £1000 for first two appearances, locked out of making more appearances (would have been £500 more) Mar 2010 - locked out of all 4 - no payment (would have been £2000) Apr 2010 - locked out of all 4 - no payment (would have been £2000) May 2010 - only one home match, locked out of that - no payment (would have been £1000 if there was a £1000 minimum payment) June 2010 - no home matches, no payment. (would have been £1000 if there was a £1000 minimum payment) The total of missing possible payments is not that easy to calculate as in Dec 2009 it is not clear what was being paid for with the £3500 as it was less than the rent amount, but it could be up to £7500. Either way it's not £33k...

I missed the "front sweeper" meme, but it seems a bit mean spirited given that the traditional sweeper/libero was just as likely to operate in front of the defensive line as behind it. A sweeper who only plays behind the back line is specifically a catenaccio. If you're taking the rise because the chosen player is probably not the best for that role (Richardson FFS?!), or that it's basically just deploying a defensive midfielder and the fact we already have two of those has not been noticed by the OP, then fair enough.

My workload is their responsibility.

...just a terrible person.

Except : http://www.northstandchat.com/showthread.php?257627-Campaign-Launched-To-Change-Football-Alcohol-Laws and : http://www.pieandbovril.com/forum/index.php/topic/134127-drinking-alcohol-inside-a-football-ground/ Which are the only other places I've seen it referenced online.

Thirty grand or not, wouldn't it be nice to think we had a Chairman who could responsibly rent a property from a stranger without the owner eventually feeling the need to try and recoup his losses through litigation ?

There are a million and one different ways to start an argument about stadium expansion.

People can completely make up "facts" to support their prejudices and never, ever post on the thread again after they're exposed as complete nonsense. (viz : Plymouth beat us in the cup and that's why Lowe appointed Sturrock. Fact : Saints have only played one cup game in their history against Plymouth, in 1967, which Saints won.)

We're all experts in rental litigation. And every other type of court case Cortese gets involved in, for that matter.

And what a pain in the arse THAT is if you have a decent landlord. My last one came around, said "yep that's probably cleaner than when you got here" and would normally have just given us a cheque there and then, but instead we both had to create accounts online and bounce a load of messages back and forth for 3 weeks. Also made me wonder why the Estate Agent had a document with 30 photos of pre-existing "damage" to the property taken. For a laugh I took my own photos on moving in, so they then had 80 pics of the state of the building on file in case they tried anything. We're talking minor scuffs to the skirting board and slight discolouration of the grouting here.

Clearly a lack of imagination is what's missing here. Throwing a cooker at a supporting wall could easily lead to £30k worth of damage, especially if it bounced off some well-maintained trees and lawn on its way to landing in the swimming pool. Probably would grubby up the windows a bit too.

Do you think he could hold one of your balls in his big gloved palm ? People on here seem to like it when he does that.

Damn content management systems. Almost as bad as that gack Saints use for their cut and paste website.

You are a truly lovely man. Why do I feel I should have posted that in orange ? Honestly though, that's how I am as well. Or was, when I was renting.

I'll go for Swansea 3-0 Bradford.

Cortese meanwhile, as a hob-damager who (allegedly) reneges on verbal agreements and doesn't pay contractually agreed fees, looks good ?

Local newspapers use same stories unshocker. Both of them are by Gordon Simpson, who works for the Echo. Just because the Basingstoke Gazette got it uploaded slightly quicker doesn't mean it's not the Echo that originated it... especially when much of the information is months old anyway.

He clearly WASN'T already suing them when he sat down with Cortese to get the agreement on paper after the first missed payments, or you have to assume Cortese wouldn't have agreed to do so, based on his actions in pretty much all other situations. It seems pretty clear to me that he can't have sued until after the property had been vacated, otherwise how would he know what damage there was and how much it cost - so he hadn't sued, he hadn't resigned, "the club" just unilaterally didn't pay him money that was due to him, initially as it was only a verbal agreement, and then again from June 2010 onwards when they already had a written deal. "It was leased by the club from October 2009 until July 2010" is clearly stated. There was no suing at that point and therefore no "resignation", real or otherwise. Anyone know when Benali actually brought the claim ?

I don't have to, I made my point by switching to Android 18 months ago.

I think it plays into the mentality Benali's tapping into a bit to say the costs are higher because the property is worth more, but I suppose you can't underestimate the risk factor being higher if the value of the home is greater - this is assuming your place wasn't worth £1.7m of course ?