An employment tribunal has awarded former Manchester City footballer, Benjamin Mendy, the majority of his claim for around £11 million in arrears of wages after he submitted a claim for salary that had been withheld from him.
In a high-profile criminal case, Mr. Mendy was accused of serious sexual offences against a number of women, but was subsequently acquitted of those charges. Whilst he was awaiting trial, he was remanded in custody for a period of time and was also suspended from his duties as a footballer.
The employment tribunal found that whilst Mr Mendy was in custody, it was reasonable for Manchester City FC to withhold his wages because he was unable to perform his contract since he couldn’t play football for them. However, the employment judge found that during the remainder of his suspension, Mr. Mendy was ready and willing to perform his work as a footballer and that he should have been paid throughout this period.
Naturally, the case will make headlines because of the huge value of the award made by the employment tribunal, which is largely reflective of the level of salary that top footballers earn in this day and age. The award will be subject to deductions for income tax, which of course will be considerable.
Details of the judgement will be published online in due course, including, we assume, full written reasons from the judge. It is likely that the lawyers for Manchester City will scrutinise the judgement to explore whether there is any basis on which an appeal could be submitted, particularly given the size of the award. However, they would need to be able to show that an error of law had been made to pursue such a course of action.