Huge Compensation Paid To Former Manchester United Footballer
A massive �4.5million payout has been awarded to a former Manchester United player. The award was granted to the player after a career ending tackle of horrific proportions was committed against him. This award comes after the player never actually made it into a first team game for the club.
The player in question is Benjamin Collett, who at the time was a youth player for the club. In the career-ending incident, he was unfortunate enough to break his leg in two separate places.
It is thought that Collett, now aged 23, would have enjoyed a top class career, due to the level of skill that he possessed. This sadly was not the case, due to the said incident, whereby an "over the ball" tackle brought his career to a sudden demise. This was the verdict heard by the High Court in London.
The perpetrator of the terrible challenge was Gary Smith, who played for Middlesborough at the time, but currently plays for Brentford. Mrs Justice Swift referred to the challenge as a "devastating blow," and also referred to an award that Collett had received in 2003, for his superb contribution in Manchester United winning the FA Youth Cup.
The judge also described Ben Collett as "A most impressive young man," and described how the individual's general attitude to life on and off the football pitch showed him to be someone that could have gone far in the game.
She also stated that prior to his injury, Mr Collett was in the process of being offered a 3-year contract with the club.
Reference was also made to comments by current Manchester United manager, Alex Ferguson, who commented that Collett was of the same ilk as players such as David Beckham, Gary Neville, and Paul Scholes, and had he not received the injury, and then he would have done extremely well in the game.
It was stated by the judge that Middlesborough and the offending player, Gary Smith, had both admitted liability.
The judge awarded Ben Collett a sum of �4.3million, �4million of which was granted because of loss of earnings suffered from his career ending in a premature fashion. In a hearing that was held in order to discuss the player's pension and interest payments, the figure was said to be likely to rise to about �4.5million.
The court heard during the case that Collett had the potential to earn himself around �13,000 a week, which, should he have played up to and including his mid 30's would have earned him a total in excess of �16million.
DLA Piper had one of their lawyers release a statement that stated that Collett had hit the jackpot, as he was playing for a very good team and was a very talented, young player. The representative, one Mark Gay, said a fair bit:
"In terms of precedent, this sees the common law principles of personal injury applied to the football pitch. Say I was a banker earning �10m a year, and you ran me over. Your negligence would be the same as if you'd run over anyone else, but if my ability to keep earning �10m is ended, you could be left with an enormous payout.
"The equivalent in football has always been possible, but very often the players most susceptible to such injury were getting on a bit, or their lawyers have had difficulty showing that it was one tackle in particular that caused an injury, as happened in the Alf-Inge Haaland vs. Roy Keane case in 2002. So often players will take a modest insurance payout rather than sue through the courts.
"What makes this exceptional is that it's one of the first in which these usual defences - the problem of causation or a player being late in his career - just didn't apply."
A statement was also released by Jan Levinson, who acted as Collett's solicitor. She said how happy the family was, now that they could all move on.
She stated that the magnitude of the award "reflected Mr Collett's talent and potential as one of the brightest young footballers in the country." She went on to add "but he would have far preferred to have earned the money through a full career in football".
The former footballer now plans to go to university in Leeds, where he intends to study English.
Somebody speaking on behalf of Middlesborough United said: "This matter is in the hands of our insurers and their solicitors and we have had no direct involvement in the case."
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